Home

Recollections from Youth

River Play

Dreadlocks

"Kierkegaard declared that too much "possibility" led to the madhouse. But when I came upon these cautionary words, I already had what Kierkegaard called, "this sickness of infinitude," wandering from one path to another with no real recognition that I was on a search and scarecely a clue as to what I might be after. I only knew that at the bottom of each breath there was a hollow place that needed to be filled." Peter Matthiessen The Snow Leopard

The Hope of Memory

As I drive I have been quietly thinking about hope. I have been thinking about hope because so often scenes of desperation surround me. I see the places I love threatened, the very freedom we seek endangered by our actions, wars without end. I sense a darkness moving in which has no name and many names. I ask myself where joy comes from? From what well can I draw hope in the midst of so much despair?

I am driving East on Interstate 90, leaving Northern Idaho, my home for 20 years. As the blacktop disappears behind me I realize that it is nearly spring, and I will miss it. In a place like Northern Idaho there is a sharp distinction between the seasons; they do not blend into one another, but come with a gasp, each embodying its own character and familiarity. I drive with my face close to the glass and stare far out into the day. The snow has receded almost overnight and the Pond Orielle River is heavy with run-off. I cannot hear it through the glass and the wind, but I can imagine its roar. I squint out at the water—spirit of waves and riverine highway.

The river is always faithful and ever-changing; it is I think, the most mesmerizing character in my life. Like an artesian well, the river is both source and conduit of life, earnestly flowing. The river’s watery will, the dance of shoreline and current captivate me. After so many years the river’s current seems to flow right through me.

I pass the confluence of the Priest and Pond Orielle Rivers and now the road winds along the shore of the Lake Pond Orielle. It is a typical Idaho March day. The morning is a vaporous gray. I tap my hands on the steering wheel; try to match the rhythm of the rain. The wind ripples across the lake, as if racing me to the far shore. Two geese are still on the torrent of little waves and look up nonchalantly as I pass. They seem indifferent to my presence in this budding spring.

The rain hits the windshield and I keep on driving.

What I pass as I drive is a testament to wildness. This is no primordial forest; but it houses the wildness of memory. I remember scraped knees, forts built in snowberry brush, fanciful imaginings of pioneers and cowboys. With every passing year we let more of our untamed places go, but Idaho is home to a few bits of wilderness not yet fragmented by roads and burbs, by the gnashing of blades and saws. Sacred spaces, known and unknown.

I try to keep these sacred spaces, close in my mind. I try to return to what keeps me alive. I dream my young and earnest dreams. Maybe it is faith, that interlude between coming and going when I am held by the firm comfort of the world I have been given. A surety that small truths will be revealed to me when I am ready. I love the way my mind, filled with the weight of too much knowing, invariably empties and is washed fresh by the thought of gulls at rest in a farmer’s yard, the memory of an afternoon alone on the Selway River. When I hesitate in this adult world of squares and stacks and speed struggling for breath, I close my eyes, breathe deep, and suck in the scent of Trillium. I remember wandering in the woods. This half-second, coming back into the body of memory, and I feel it again, the great life pulse coiled up inside of me.

I am humming a wordless song. I pass a Tamarack towering hundreds of feet high, the reddish-brown bark furrowed and corky, reflecting light. In the fall, the needles will turn a stunning gold and drop to the ground. Seasoned for a year in the woodshed, the earth-scents of Tamarack will forever light fires and Christmas memories. The Tamarack is a stalwart tree; often it is the only one that will survive a summer fire, standing luminous on mountain slopes, enduring. Grouse eat its buds and leaves, and seek shelter from wind in the protective embrace of its reaching limbs. I recall days spent playing beneath a canopy of Tamarack, the reddened needles a soft padding under my bare feet. Sap stuck to skin and clothes, the crisp perfume of wet earth and pine. Princess of pines. The forests of home—Spruce, Cedar, Hemlock, Quaking Aspen and the Douglas Fir dapple the rocky soil. I know the biota by name, but I love them by scent, by feel, by heart.

The rain hits the windshield and I keep on driving.

Why is it we pay attention to familiar places on the eve of long journey? Why does it seem to take the risk of losing what we love to wake us up to what has been there all along? I pass a dilapidated barn, the aluminum roof in various degrees of disintegration; an open gate swings in the breeze. Meltwater fills the hollows of pasturelands and fields. This landscape rolls by familiar and lovely.

Beneath the snow, life has been waiting patiently. Bulbs and seeds are restless under frosty insulation. Soon there will be color. First will come the early spring wildflowers, too eager to wait for warmer weather. Calypso Bulbosa—the Fairy Slipper—is always the first. Her delicate, wispy frame and drooping petals hide near decayed stumps and logs, far into the deep shade. Trillium will bloom about the time the robins return. Unlike the Fairy Slipper, Trillium Ovatum is extroverted and approachable, exposing her spring bloom along creek banks and in open fields. She bares all and dares your gaze to linger. I learned to decipher the age of Trillium Ovatum by the shade of her color. The young flower is stark white, her bright yellow anthers contrasting with the pale petals. As she ages her petals change, first a soft pink, then a darker rose. The graying Trillium is a dawn-tinted angel. Names roll off my tongue, their images scroll by in my mind. Sagebrush buttercup, Larkspur, Balsaamroot, their names are like a melody, a spring-scape sonata.

The rain hits the windshield and I keep on driving.

A gust rattles my car on the two-lane highway. Miles of barbed wire and piles of slash whir by. Up ahead in the road I see an obstruction, a tiny movement. I cannot make clear what it is. I slow and move to the side of the road. The crunching of gravel adds to the raucous of wind and rain. What I see now is a female Mallard, her dark, mottled body motionless. The male, his chestnut breast heaving, walks dazed and distracted around her. I creep by and I watch the bird as he paces a wavering path around his mate—a chilling ritual of mourning. I turn away from the window and accelerate. I try to shake the image from my mind, this sorrowful bird, his slow heavy steps, his beak close to her body as if memorizing the smell of her. I swallow hard. The Earth giveth and the Earth taketh away. Life is nasty and cruel, ugly and beautiful. My mind is filled with Mallards.

The rain hits the windshield and I keep on driving.

As I drive I know I am mourning this inevitable departure, resisting the persistence of change. I have never missed an Idaho spring. My breath catches in my throat; I feel the pounding of my heart in my ears, in my hands. Even the air smells different. I am going on a long journey, what will be left of my home when I return? The Knapweed and Scotchwood wave goodbye to me. Goodbye I call, goodbye. I drive and I stare out at a landscape of childhood and regeneration, the passing of seasons. For twenty years I have grown into a story of pines and wildflowers, and now I am growing away. I want to linger just a moment more and let the landscape teach me something about my life. Leaves folded into the pages of a book are the only things I can take. I know this spring is a gift and I should be grateful. But the prayer that builds does not sound like thanks; it sounds more like sobbing. Life calls me forward. Spring will flit past elusive and I can do nothing but wave. I am filled with a grief I have never known, sadness for life and life’s brevity. Everything is changing.

I round a bend and the river comes into sight, a ribbon of gray silk. I lean into remembering and find my breath. I pull onto the shoulder and step out into the coolness of morning. I walk toward the river stumbling over my own numbness and fear. I have to leave this place but I don’t know where I am going. My path is so unclear. I thrust my hand into the current, water ruffling and swirling through my fingers. The tears flow. In my life I have been redeemed. From the water I come up clean, again and again. Gratitude catches in my throat.

I carry this memory, the memory of hope, the hope of memory that will keep me buoyant. Nothing is clear, but this truth holds me—there are times when my heart has beat truly with the beat of the world, and my body remembers. Memory is relentless as this river. When I feel sorrow grow in me for all of human brokenness, my own and the world’s, I try to think of the way life fills in at the edges, where the green begins to overcome all the darkness. I bring memories of home. And in home is joy. Like prodigal children we can always return. The land will always take us back—for her only desire is wholeness, and I am a part of all that. I am thankful for so much grace. Again I will dance barefoot beneath the Tamaracks, fill my nose with the scent of Trillium—it is a hope as joyous as rain that never empties the sky. Time will pass. I sit gazing into the river of second chances and see the world reflected whole.

The rain hits the windshield and I keep on driving.

The Selkirks, Idaho

Adam and Marta, Riggins, Idaho

~ return to top ~