Floating: ruminations from the open-air abyss

Item Type Thesis

Authors Nyberg, Brandi Jo Petronio

Download date 25/09/2021 13:20:45

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/11122/10523 FLOATING: RUMINATIONS FROM THE OPEN-AIR ABYSS

By

Brandi Jo Petronio Nyberg, B.S.

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

in

Creative Writing: Nonfiction

University of Alaska Fairbanks

May 2019

APPROVED:

Daryl Farmer, Ph.D., Committee Chair Frank Soos, M.F.A., Committee Member Jennifer Schell, Ph.D., Committee Member Rich Carr, Ph.D., Chair Department of English Todd Sherman, M.F.A., Dean College of Liberal Arts Michael Castellini, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate School Abstract

This thesis is a collection of environmentally centered personal essays, some of which are also research driven. Many of the essays within are place-based and several reflect on what the word ‘home' means. The research-driven essays involved conducting literature reviews within academic journals and, in some cases, weaving that information with personal narrative.

Throughout the thesis, there is a loose narrative arc that follows the author's nomadic wanderings and search for home. Although a home is never quite found, the author does find a deeper meaning on what it means to call a place ‘home.' While the order of essays jumps from

one place to the next geographically, they are ordered in a chronological sense - although not

completely. Throughout the collection, the author is in direct conversation with many writers who have inspired her own writing, including Edward Abbey, Henry Thoreau, Barry Lopez, and

Terry Tempest Williams.

The purpose of this project is not only to entertain readers but also to educate. The author

hopes that her writing will encourage readers to strengthen their connection to place and the

environment and become engaged with pressing environmental issues, such as mountaintop

removal mining.

iii iv Table of Contents

Page

Title Page ...... i

Abstract ...... iii

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Figures ...... vii

Acknowledgements...... viii

Dedication ...... ix

Chapter 1: “The Mound” ...... 1

Chapter 2: “Orlando” ...... 6

Chapter 3: “The Smell of a Jaguar” ...... 12

3.1: References...... 27

Chapter 4: “A River's Balance”...... 28

Chapter 5: “Have You Heard the Good Word of The Bus?”...... 49

Chapter 6: “Seneca ROCKS”...... 53

Chapter 7: “Coyote”...... 57

Chapter 8: “Jewel in the Desert”...... 62

Chapter 9: “Oldest Mountains”...... 74

v 9.1: References...... 81

Chapter 10: “Walking” ...... 82

Chapter 11: “Keylime and Cooter Row Backwards” ...... 90

Chapter 12: “Requiem for a Serpent” ...... 111

Chapter 13: “Adrift” ...... 119

Chapter 14: “the bad place” ...... 131

Chapter 15: “Oh Compost! My Compost!” ...... 133

15.1: Works Cited ...... 137

Chapter 16: “Vultures” ...... 138

Chapter 17: “Garden of the Last Frontier” ...... 140

Chapter 18: “Harboring a Home” ...... 144

vi List of Figures Page

Figure 1 Rowing through some flat water in the rubber rafts...... 62

Figure 2 The roaring flood separating our group in Elves Chasm...... 68

Figure 3 Finally free, Glen and Audra rejoice and kiss...... 71

Figure 4 Original plan of execution...... 95

Figure 5 Intended vs. Actual Route ...... 109

vii Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Daryl Farmer, Frank Soos, and Jennifer Schell for acting as members of my

Thesis Committee, and Mary Beth Leigh for acting as my outside examiner. Furthermore, I would especially like to thank Daryl Farmer, my Thesis Chair, and Frank Soos for their guidance in writing and revising my thesis. Without their assistance, my work would not have the depth it now does.

I would also like to thank the following magazines and journals for publishing versions of essays within this thesis:

- American Whitewater for publishing “Jewel in the Desert” and for publishing part of “A

River's Balance,” under the name of “First Loves and First Swims.”

- Peacock Journal for publishing “Seneca ROCKS” in both their online and print journals.

- TINGE Magazine for publishing “Have You Heard the Good Word of The Bus?”

- Marathon Literary Review for publishing “Walking.”

- Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis for publishing “Oldest

Mountains.” (forthcoming)

- Garo for publishing “Requiem for a Serpent.” (forthcoming)

viii Dedication

For my parents, who have always been supportive and proud of me, even when I took to living in

a tent and working jobs that made little money.

And for my husband, Dale, and our dogs, Banzai and Ayla. Thank you for bringing so much joy

and adventure to my life.

ix Floating: Ruminations from the Open-Air Abyss

“Why have we chosen downstream motion over ambition, scorpions over briefcases, toad concerts over creeping nihilism? Why don't we own patios like the rest of those cocktail desperadoes out there?” - Ellen Meloy, Raven's Exile

x xi Chapter 1: “The Mound”

In a car packed full of people, I ride with my window down, letting the amber dirt road dust my face. I stare at the seemingly endless landscape of tall pine trees, which appear like an

optical illusion - line after line for as far as the eye can see cutting through a backdrop of pale

sky. Ocala National Forest, Florida is the world's largest contiguous tract of sand pine and scrub

oak habitat and home to several clear fresh water springs and rivers.

It's also known as a place where many dead (presumably murdered) Floridian bodies are

dumped.

But, my friends and I, we're not looking for a place to dump a body. We're just looking

for a place to camp. It's 70 degrees outside but will top 90 before next weekend. We have one

last chance to enjoy this beautiful weather before the heat becomes unbearable and the mosquitos

outnumber molecules in the air. Apparently, every other Florida resident has the same idea on their mind - all of our favorite campsites are overrun. All of the campsites we've never even

heard of are overrun too. Not just with tents, but trucks, RVs, motorcycles, engines and

generators and grills. Who ever said the woods were peaceful?

We stop at another campsite - a last resort - the kind with toilets and showers and people

and everything else we came out here to get away from. Of course, it's full too. A friend of mine

approaches an overworked Forest Service Ranger on duty, shows him the map.

“Any idea of where we might find a place to camp?”

The Ranger sighs, looks at us like he might feel sorry. “Forest is packed this weekend.

Seems like everyone's out here. Look, just camp wherever you find a good spot. Don't worry if

it's not designated for camping.”

1 We all give him thanks and cram back into the car. “What a nice guy,” someone says. A few miles later, we turn down another dirt road and eventually come to a small, “primitive” recreation site. No toilets, no picnic tables, no gravel spots for tents, and no other people, just forest and a lone grassy hill. Beyond the hill is a small creek. Our group unanimously votes this is the spot - hands down, no questions asked.

I cheer and yell, “Let's go swimming!” I'm already prepared, swimsuit beneath my clothes. Paul, my boyfriend, and I go for a dip in the cool water, refreshing ourselves. He swims around in the shallow waters. Floating on my back, I stare up at the treetops, their branches creeping every which way, spider webs spanning between them. Against the pines I stared at all morning, these hardwoods seem restless. Instead, I crouch on the shoreline, looking for unusual rocks. Out of the chilly water, in the shadows of trees, the hair on my arms begins to rise and I shiver. I drift away from the water, heading toward the car to grab my backpack; my hair drips the river water down my spine. On my way to the car, I walk over to an old wooden sign offering information about the area.

As I get close, I notice bees buzzing everywhere. I see a bee nest tucked up in the corner of the sign, buzzing with activity. I'm surrounded. The bees buzz back and forth, almost dive­ bombing me. I get the impression that the bees aren't pleased with us invading their space; these bees are keeping ward of this place. They continue to swarm around me and my bare skin as I slowly back away, unable to read about the area, before bolting into a run.

After I grab my bag from the car, I see Paul looking for a superior spot to set up our tent.

For me, there is no question. In the flattest of flat places, a hill all on its own is striking - curious, even. I run to the top of the grassy mound and declare, “Here!” Stomping my foot in unison with my word.

2 As I nail the tent stakes into the soft earth, I ask, “Did anyone read about the area? The sign?”

My friend Tim, setting his tent up near the base of the hill, replies on behalf of the group,

“No - did you see the bees over there? They were out of control!”

The campfire crackles as I roast a hotdog on a stick, sipping my whiskey and coke.

Smoke rises from the fire, drifting away like lost spirits leaving the dark forest. Every so often, I slap a mosquito on my bare legs, but the fire helps deter them. There is talk of rigging up a system to hang our food from a tree, keeping it away from the numerous black bears that frequent the Ocala National Forest. I suggest we put our food in the car instead. A few others like this idea too. We eat our hotdogs, drink our whiskey, talk about the meaning of life. When the fire begins to die, we move to discuss the inevitability of death; consider what this forest was like in past times, what it may be like in the future.

As the fire fizzles out, the mosquitoes begin to take their cue and work their way in. Paul, the firemaker, puts sand over the coals. We all say our goodnights and sweet dreams, heading to our respective tents. Once in the tent, I lie on my back and listen to the familiar forest noises: the crickets, the frogs, the owls, the wind. The sounds lull me to sleep.

O O O

In the night, I awake to an unfamiliar noise. I hear what sounds like the clicking of a tongue, followed by a noise similar to when blowing into a narrow glass bottle, but begins deeper and ends higher. Click. Whooooop. The sound repeats. I sit up and listen. It goes again. Click.

Whooooop.

“Paul, wake up,” I whisper, nudging his shoulder. “Paul, wake the fuck up.”

3 Huh? What?

“Listen.”

The noise repeats. And again. Click. Whoooooop. Click. Whoooooop. Click. Whooooop.

Then, the noise of running. Running! Fast paced, two legged, heavy footed running through the woods. The pounding of the feet gets louder, coming closer. Click Whoooooop. And closer -

heading toward us. My heart pounds as loud as the feet. Terrified, I listen, with no idea what to

do. This is it, I think. I'm going to waste away in the Ocala National Forest with all of the other dead bodies. I'm breathing heavy, but trying not to breathe so loud, as if I could go undetected in this brightly colored, reflective tent, perched on top of a lone hill. I hear the two feet - running - almost here.

Whatever was running, continues past and the noise fades as quickly as it came. Shaking,

I am left listening to only my heart beat.

“What was that?” Paul asks me. To him, this seems like a normal question. I am a wildlife major in college and I know every call, chirp, and hoot that animals make in this neck of the woods.

“What was it?” I whisper back, “I don't know?! Not an animal! That thing wasn't

running on all fours - that was bipedal!” I cannot get over the two-legged aspect.

We sit in silence, ears ready. The sound does not return, only the usual noises which had

earlier lulled me to sleep. This time, they do not work in the same fashion. I lie on my back, heart

racing, adrenaline pumping, listening. Sleep does not come to me, but I do not hear the noise again. Eventually, as twilight begins to show its face, I fall back asleep.

4 In the morning, as the bright sun breaks through my tent and then my eyelids, I hear the noises of others, the zipping and unzipping of tent doors, yawns, whispers. I crawl out of my tent and walk down the grassy hill, toward my friends.

“Holy shit. Did anyone hear that last night?” I ask. My hands tremble and my pits sweat just thinking about it.

“Hear what?”

“That noise.. .the crazy noise.. .and the running.” I click my tongue and then breathe in, my mouth pursed as though I were going to whistle, trying to imitate the noise, “Click.Whoooop.

Click. Whoooop...and then whatever was making that noise ran past us - on two feet. Not four!”

My friend Tim stares at me with wide eyes and a pale face. For a moment, he looks as if he doesn't know what to say. “Brandi, go read that sign. I woke up early...I read it this morning.”

Puzzled, I listen to him, leaving my grassy hill in the distance, headed for the sign. This morning the bees are mellow, emitting a humming buzz - the kind of harmonious hum that could put a person in a trance - and they allow me to approach.

My gut drops. The hair on the back of my neck rises. Goosebumps creep up my arms as I shiver. My palms and pits sweat even more. I briefly read about the buried bodies - the prehistoric Tishler peoples of this area - as I slowly back away, sick to my stomach, ridden with guilt.

Burial mounds. I just slept on the top of a Native Burial Mound.

5 Chapter 2: “Orlando”

As long as I have been alive and aware of place, I have not felt at home in Orlando. To this day, when someone asks me where I am from, I stutter. Partly because I have lived in so many places throughout my adulthood that I'm not sure where to call home, and partly because I am self-conscious of being from Orlando. For what reasons, I wasn't always sure. I just assumed

Florida was simply too flat for me and Orlando too big of a city. Now, as a far-far removed adult

(like, Alaska far removed) I understand this aversion more clearly.

When I first took my husband Dale (he was just my boyfriend then) to Orlando, he was baffled as to why I couldn't locate places or remember how to get somewhere, how I would get lost, all in the town where I grew up. Over the course of 18 years in Orlando, I watched the few small green segments of wild Florida, habitats of oak and saw palmetto and smilax, bulldozed again and again and again, for road widening, new shopping plazas and grocery stores, new subdivisions, new theme parks. Orlando continued to grow and grow, swallowing the surrounding space whole. I tried to explain how much things had changed since my childhood,

how greatly things still change in between visits - how Orlando had become unrecognizable to

me.

After driving around, he began to see. Why are there so many shopping plazas and why do they all look the same? He wondered. My husband also pondered Why are the parking lots so expansive? Are they ever totally filled? Or, I wonder how much the electric bill is to run AC in that two-story, 5-bedroom home? But most of all, he asked, and tried to understand: Why does everyone live in gated communities in houses that all look the same? I could not answer his questions with logic, no matter how hard I tried. Of course, this also only describes the upper­

6 middle class to wealthy areas of Orlando. But the run-down areas appear the same, in their own, dilapidated way: shopping plazas with peeling paint and boarded up stores, empty parking lots with cracks sprouting grass, brick-walled neighborhoods (not completely gated) with identical homes stacked on top of one another, mildew running up the sides. They speak of Orlando's past and of Orlando's future.

Within the confines of Orlando, Florida, the geography and particulars of place are irrelevant, other than the warm weather. Rather, the geography of Orlando is made up of air

conditioned spaces - shopping plazas, upscale chain restaurants, high priced themed resort hotels

(Cabana Bay, Portofino Bay, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, All-Star Music Resort,

Caribbean Beach - located on a lake), outlet malls, hair and beauty salons, oversized homes, the

most expensive and flashy cars on the market - and theme parks, sprawling parking lots, never­

ending brick-walled or gated (or both) subdivisions of identical homes with lush green lawns

draining the Florida Aquifer with sprinkler systems (decades of pumping this groundwater at an

alarming rate, particularly for sprinkler systems, has led to a major decline in the aquifer's

recharging capability, endangering the system and Florida's fresh water supply), screened-in

outdoor pools, all with palm trees sporadically sprinkled about.

My husband truly began to understand my literally lost-sense-of-self when we did not

return to Orlando for two years. When we came back, the ten-mile radius around my parents'

home had transformed substantially. Is that a new theme park? He asked me. Yes, it was, I

determined, as we drove by on our way to the interstate. Two new resort hotels had also been built to house the tourists visiting the additional theme park. Lanes had been added to the road,

plazas extended. New homes had even been constructed in my parents' neighborhood in areas

that had previously remained as green space.

7 During my most recent visit to Orlando, I stumbled upon one of the many stories I wrote

as a child, this one about West Virginia (I was always writing stories and “self-publishing,” by

hand, books, magazines, autobiographies, collections of stories, etc.). I wrote that Elkins, West

Virginia was my favorite place in the world not only because my mom's family was there, but because it was green everywhere and there weren't bulldozers clearing away trees (my West

Virginia family is luckily not living near the mountain top mining), and because everywhere you went you knew someone. At the time of writing these sentiments I was about nine years old. I

longed to have the freedom of a real childhood. To run wild in fields of grasses, and walk places,

and say hi to neighbors, and ride my bike to friends' houses, and pick up candy at the local

grocery store. These were the kinds of things I did with my cousins while visiting West Virginia

and, therefore, the kinds of things I envisioned a true childhood consisted of. I wanted to be

connected to the place I lived in a physical way.

However, in Orlando, none of this was possible. Orlando, was not, is not, and most likely

never will be (for a very long time) green in any sense of the word, unless you are looking at one

of the many meticulously manicured, chemically fertilized, watered-ever-other-day-with-a-

sprinkler-system lawns. And, Orlando was too big, too dangerous, there were too many cars,

everything was too far (the large subdivisions furthering the distance to anywhere), and people weren't quite friendly. To get somewhere, I needed to ride my bike the one-mile out of my gated

subdivision, past streetlights, alongside a busy road (now four lanes, but when I was very young was two lanes and with no streetlights), past other gated community subdivisions, no shelter from shade in the gawd-awful heat (what with everything expanding so quickly, no trees had

grown big enough to shelter sidewalks), all to arrive at: a shopping plaza. A large expanse of

parking lot, an Albertson's chain grocery, Wallgreens, Subway, a bank, a Blockbuster video

8 (R.I.P.), TCBY chain ice-cream store (no small-town, family owned ice cream shops for you, kid!), FedEX, a Perkin's chain restaurant, and what else? More and more stores, but what did I care, as a kid? For a while, across the street, there was a vacant, wild lot. Although it was clear the lot had once upon a time been bulldozed, vines and shrubs had grown around the

Commercial Lot for Sale! sign. That, too, eventually became another shopping plaza. With another grocery store (the competitor chain), a CVS to combat the Wallgreens, upscale clothing and jewelry store chains, a wine shop, and more and more and more. And why? Because we, the people, have got to have choices.

And this, too, is a choice: the physical place or stuff - material things. The physical place or more stores to buy more things. Orlando has made its choice, and is, by no means, the only area to have chosen the collection of stuff over the connection to place.

But it's not simply the man-made physical space that makes me feel not-at-home. In the places I have lived over the past decade or so, I have never felt uneasy about wearing jeans and a flannel, especially not where I live now - jeans and a flannel could be considered dress wear. But in Orlando, I leave the house dressed as usual and begin to feel ashamed. I feel eyes staring at me, judging me. I feel that I am not being judged on my quality of character, but my financial status and material appeal. Reflecting on how I feel as an adult in public places of Orlando, it becomes clear why I was such a self-conscious teenage girl and young woman, ever obsessed with my weight and appearance. A stroll through the grocery store and you will see women who appear feminine, beyond goddess-like, fake, even. Out to dinner somewhere, and I see skin bronzed from tanning beds and spray-on tans (even though the sun will suffice), nails freshly manicured and painted, hair recently dyed and blow dried, big butts and breasts with tiny waists

(my brother has informed me that butt implants are now on the rise in Orlando, whereas breast

9 implants have always been popular), toned arms, high heels, teeth whitened, and skin tightened.

Being surrounded by people who embody this kind of strategically constructed appearance can suck the confidence right out of you, especially when you stand there in jeans and a flannel.

I was embarrassed of all this. I am embarrassed of all this. But I can't take back where

I'm from, where I was born. I can't relive my childhood in the verdant and quiet hollers of

Elkins, West Virginia because I am from the concrete suburban jungle of Orlando. I will never know the luxury of riding my bike as a child from my house to the corner store to a friend's house or to anywhere. And, as a kid, as much as I wanted these things to shape me into the person I am, they didn't - Orlando did.

And this is where I begin to see the bright side. Maybe if I wasn't from a place like

Orlando I wouldn't embody the starkly opposite kind of culture that I do. Maybe if I was raised in West Virginia I would have longed to flee the mountains, to find the nearest city, maybe I would have worshiped worth based in wealth and physicality. Maybe I would have moved to the suburbs - somewhere, anywhere (maybe the warm, welcoming suburbs of Orlando?) - and bought a big house in a gated community (to showcase my success! of course) and gotten those butt implants that are so gosh darned trendy (‘cause lookin' good ain't easy). Judging by the rest of my West Virginia family, who have mostly all remained or returned to the soft-spoken mountains and retained a deep sense of connection to the place they are from, I doubt it. But, I really am attempting to see the bright side of being born in a place I never belonged, so I'm not going to rule out this would-be-small-town-girl-goes-to-the-big-city scenario. And instead of this scenario playing out, the opposite occurred. I ran from the suburbs to open, wild spaces, and to small towns - places where people know each other and are friendly and I can ride a bike to my destinations. I fled from the city in search of value that wasn't attached to my bank account or

10 my physical appearance (because I'm just too attached to my jeans and flannel). Instead, I strived to be judged by the quality of my character.

I don't wish to strike a bone of contention with folks who genuinely love and live in

Orlando. My parents still live there and love it, and I love them, truly. I only wish to express my perception, my perhaps-not-so-humble opinions, based on my observations over time. I wish to understand, too, this feeling I have harbored all my life about a place that was never my home, only an accidental place of birth.

Each time I return to Orlando, I am overcome with anxiety and sadness. All the hope I've stored up of the world changing, people becoming more compassionate and aware of the environment and the burdens we place upon it is sucked dry. There is no hope, I think. Suburbia has swallowed the physical space that is now deemed Orlando and is swallowing many of the unique small towns across America that used to pride themselves on character. Houses and people and places are all beginning to look the same, and we, as a nation, are losing what physically connects us to place. When this connection ceases to exist, soon we will too.

11 Chapter 3: “The Smell of a Jaguar”

Tefe, even though it reeks of fetid dog shit, is beautiful. The deep orangey red, clay like soils that permeate the streets, the brightly colored, hand painted signs and buildings, the lush, deep green surroundings buzzing with insects. We fly by the colorful ramshackle homes, propped up on stilts to avoid flooding during the rainy season, road stands selling coconuts, open air markets, and riverside bars - also on stilts - selling ice cold Itaipava beer.

The air is thick and damp. Sweat drips from my short hair, down my neck, and follows my spine, absorbed by my dress. The wind on the back of the motorcycle gives me relief. A sort of natural air conditioning.

The people of Tefe are warm and friendly, always eager to talk with me: why am I here and where am I from, where was I born and where is my family, do I like Brazil, the Amazon,

Tefe, please try this fruit I brought you and drink this coffee I made you, may I take a picture with you, and do I know who Xuxa is and that I look like her? Often, I am stared at out of curiosity, or because I look like Xuxa - a woman who all the children grow up singing along with as they watch her on television. I am tall with a short, bright blonde pixie cut. I am tan, but not like the residents of this place.

As I get off the motorcycle, my legs stick and then zipppp peel off. Obrigada, I say and pay the moto-taxi driver. My time here in Tefe is brief - only one day - before I venture back into the Amazonian abyss. I'm in need of some essentials. Toothpaste. Tampons. Talcum powder. Probably a bar of soap. Maybe some chocolate too.

Inside the small supermercado people smile at me and wave. Oi. I smile and wave back.

The young woman at the check-out giggles. De onde voce e? I tell her I am from the United

States. Voce fala bem portugues, she says. Obrigada, I blush, thanking her. I haven't spoken

12 much for her to go off of, but I think she is surprised I speak Portuguese at all. She asks me if I

know that I look like Xuxa.

***

Riding in a small boat with a motor, gliding over the river, is another kind of natural air

conditioner. I think we go around 30 or so miles per hour, but I'm not sure. Converting numbers

to English and then from kilometers to miles is sometimes too much for me to bother with.

Mamirauá, the Sustainable Development Reserve we are traveling to, is a little more than two

hours' time in the boat. I do know this.

Shortly after departing from Tefe, traveling upstream, our boat meets the mixing of

murky waters, where the Japurá River meets the Solimδes, the main branch of the Amazon. Our journey continues up the Solimδes. Today Emiliano is driving; he is the leader of our team and

also my lover. Louise and I prop our feet up on the stockpile of toilet paper and yell to each other

over the motor. Ferro is in the other boat with Daniel, carrying our food. Ferro passes us and

waves, laughing. He loves to play games.

In our boats, we whizz past trees on the banks of this wide, sediment-rich river. The rainy

season has begun, and day by day, inch by inch, the Amazon river is rising. Soon the river will

be wider. Soon the trees will only be treetops. This type of floodplain forest is called á.

This is part of why we are journeying on this boat, deep into the reserve. We want to

know where the jaguars go when the várzea is flooded. In order to find this out we have to radio­

collar some jaguars. To get a collar around the neck of a jaguar, you have to catch one first.

Clouds move in quickly, hiding the blue sky. The daily afternoon showers have arrived. It

begins to pour sheets of rain, but we are prepared. We put on our rain jackets, raise the hoods,

and stare down. If you look straight out, into the rain, it feels like needles pricking your face.

13 ***

In Portuguese the jaguar is called onςa pintada. The Latin, or scientific, name is

Panthera onca. These large cats belong to the Felidae family in the Carnivora order of the

Mammalia class. In other words, they are mammals that eat the flesh of other animals. “Jaguar” is a name well suited for the species - it comes from the word yaguam, which is believed to translate as “wild beast that overcomes its prey at a bound” (Hoogesteijn & Mondolfi, 1992).

Panthera, the genus of the jaguar, is shared with the lion, tiger, clouded leopard, and snow leopard. However, of all the Panthera species, the jaguar is the only one found in the Americas.

The name of our research team is Projeto Iauarete. I am told that iauarete is an

Indigenous word that means “the real jaguar.” The word is from a story of a man who morphs into a jaguar - he is iauarete.

***

In the reserve, I spend a lot of time putzing around, reading books and chatting with

Louise, the veterinary expert of our project. Emiliano, the researcher leading Projeto Iauarete, and I play backgammon. We met while he was a PhD student in the U.S., and I an undergraduate. I began helping him with his jaguar data then, and our love for jaguars quickly evolved into a fervor for one another.

Nearly every day, I bake a loaf of bread. Right now, I'm on a sweet loaf kick. Daniel, a

Master's student studying jaguars, always watches me knead the bread, asking me when I will bake an apple pie for him again. When my brain is tired of translating, I retreat to my hammock.

This is my only option for retreat - I cannot leave when I please because the base camp floats on the Amazon River, tethered to distant tree trunks, rising and falling with the water's surface. I am

14 surrounded by caiman infested waters. Caiman are like alligators, except bigger. And more

aggressive.

Chapinha, who is the caretaker of this flutuante base, has a sort of pet caiman. His name

is Coronel. When Chapinha is finished cooking or eating, he goes onto the deck just outside the

kitchen's screen door. “Coronel.. .Coronel....” he chants, along with a few kisses, just like you'd

call a dog. Always, there comes this massive, prehistoric beast, slithering in on the top of the

water like a serpent. It's obvious that this caiman eats well. Even though Coronel terrifies me, I

love to watch Chapinha do this. Shhhh he always whispers to me, finger to his lips. Nosso

segredo, Xuxa lua. The research institute would not appreciate him feeding the wildlife.

I do leave the base camp twice a day to check jaguar traps. These traps are modified foot

snares that we have placed strategically on game trails we know jaguars use throughout the

forests. Each morning, we awake in our hammocks with the sun, boil some eggs, toast some

bread (from whichever loaf I made the day before), make some coffee, and then zip off on boats

into the reserve to check our traps. We do the same in the evening. It's not necessary to check

these traps midday - the jaguars aren't doing much then.

***

Jaguars are generally nocturnal, remaining active and hunting at night. However, many jaguars have been known to abide by their own rules, being noted as diurnal, hunting in the

dusky hours of the morning and evening (Crawshaw & Quigley, 1991; Emmons, 1987; Emmons,

1989). When the jaguar is active depends on the behavior of prey species - what the jaguar is

feeding on. As what the jaguar primarily eats changes throughout the distribution, the activity of

the jaguar also changes.

15 Jaguars are what I like to call opportunistic predators. They will hunt and consume an impressive variety of prey, which has been tallied to more than 85 species (Seymour, 1989).

Some of the more common meals for jaguars consist of capybaras, armadillos, peccaries, sloth, caiman, turtle, deer, agoutis, and fish. When hunting, the jaguar will move as quietly and as close as possible to the animal, before ambushing with a swift pounce. But because they eat so many different species, jaguars must be clever. Several other hunting and ambushing techniques have been observed. Possibly one of the more interesting of these is the jaguar using its tail as a fishing lure - a kind of specialized fly fishing, you could say (Gudger, 1946).

Like other species of the Panthera genus, jaguars usually kill large prey by biting the throat. But jaguars, they aren't your run of the mill feline. The jaguar also kills by biting into the skull, a technique that is not used by any other cat (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002). This is easily done, thanks to their large heads, sizable canines, and brawny jaws, which give the jaguar a more powerful bite than any other cat in the world (Van Valkenvurgh & Ruff, 1987).

In the reserve, I once met a man who had been attacked by a jaguar. His skull and the side of his face bore the scars.

***

Over the past month, the habitual ritual of checking traps has been fruitful only once. I was lucky enough to have been the one who found the jaguar. I was with Emiliano. That capture, well, that's another story. This is not that story.

Louise and I are together today, making the rounds. Even though Louise speaks no

English, and my Portuguese is about equal with a six-year old, there is no language barrier between us. I have many ways of dancing around the words I want to say and Louise always

16 knows what I mean. Sometimes, when words aren't doing the job, we communicate telepathically.

Walking through the muck of this maze, shaded by the jungle of trees, I slap one of the three thousand mosquitos swarming me. Those Amazonian mosquitos, they love the blood of

Xuxa. I stop and take in a deep breath - I smell something. Something peculiar. Something slightly familiar.

My entire life I have always had a keen sense of smell and taste. I claim that I am what you call a “super taster,” which is a real genetic trait. Although I can damn near pin down the taste of any spice used in a cup of soup, I never contended that my sense of smell or taste gave me any supernatural powers. Especially, never, that I could track animals with my sense of smell. No, this was not my claim.

Yet, here I am, and I know this smell. This is exactly what the first jaguar we caught smelled like. Different than the pure musk of a lion or tiger - no, much, much sweeter. After that first capture, I remember not wanting to wash my hands back at the base, because they smelled so much like a jaguar. I rubbed them all over my hammock, so that I could smell him when I slept and dream of jaguars.

“Louise, eu cheiro uma onςa. Aqui - agora. Uma onga-pintada!”

Louise bursts into laughter - she and I are always laughing. Brandinha! Engraçada... She is trying to tell me that I am entertaining. I am funny.

“Sério!” I tell her. “Cheiro uma onςa...eu sei!” I smell it, I know this. I even make her stop as I sniff around, low to the ground at first, then over to the right, sniffing on some large, woody vines off the trail. Sim. Uma onca estava aqui. Yes, a jaguar was here. Louise is crying, laughing, watching me sniff around like a hound.

17 We keep walking, all the while I try to convince Louise that yes, I definitely smelled a jaguar. There was definitely a jaguar there, in that spot, very recently. She continues laughing, engraςada...

By the time we circle back and reach the boat, 30 or so minutes later, I'm laughing too.

We laugh together, over the motor, wind in our faces.

"Nossa onça'" - our jaguar, Louise yells, "Nóspegamos uma onςa...Brendinha cheirou a onça!^^ We'll catch a jaguar, Brandi smelled it.

***

The jaguar has played a dominant role in many Native cultures of the Americas - especially in Central and South - intertwined with mythology, art, and religion (Coe, 1972).

Many ancient cultures of these regions worshiped the jaguar in one form or another, including the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca. The Mayan creation myth even revolved around the jaguar - they believed the jaguar was put on earth to dominate humans until humans successfully learned to control the jaguar using weapons and tools (Rabinowitz, 2014).

In Olmec mythology, a woman was raped by a jaguar and then gave birth to the ithunder child,” the beginning of a race of iwere-jaguars,” which had both human and jaguar features

(Coe, 1972). These half-man, half-jaguar thunder children were rain deities. In the northwest region of the Amazon, the Tucano people have a myth that the sun created the jaguar, giving him his yellow color and thunder voice (Coe, 1979; Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002).

Time and time again, in all of these regions, the jaguar is associated with thunder, lightning, and rain (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002).

***

18 That night, the urge to pee wakes me up. Xuxa tem que fazer xixi. This is normal for me - usually one to three times per night. Some say I drink too much water. I'd say no one else drinks enough. Like usual, I ignore the urge until I cannot possibly for any longer because my bladder will give way. The pitter patter of the rain on the flutuante base's metal roof does me in. As I crawl out of my hammock, I notice light creeping through the crack beneath the door.

Upon opening the door, I see that, yes, the light is on in the main room and something is flying all around, headed toward me, past me, and then back around again. I'm confused, sleepy with blurry vision, and an overly full bladder. It flies past me again. Chapinha is also awake, standing in the room, watching with a hand net.

“Chapinha!” I say. “It's a bat! We have to catch it and get it out of here!”

He stares at me, blankly, with a puzzled look on his face.

“Why are you looking at me so funny? There it goes again, grab it with the net!”

Again, blank stares. He chuckles. And then, I realize. I am speaking in English.

“Desculpa...estavafalando em inglês!”

Chapinha laughs more - he is definitely always laughing. “Ah, Xuxa lua...voce e engraçada." Apparently everyone thinks I'm amusing. He frequently calls me Xuxa lua because

I look like Xuxa and am white like the moon. I always explain to him that, actually, I am pretty tan, just not compared to him.

He uses the hand net to catch the bat, and together, we bring it outside. We stand under the overhang, sheltered from the rain, and release the bat.

After relieving my bladder, I return to my hammock, listening to the rain strengthen, roaring on the metal roof, and thunder in the distance.

***

19 Many Indigenous tales also heavily associate the jaguar with transformation. This is no doubt due to the jaguar's ability to transform, or adapt, to so many habitats and eat so many species. The diversity of the animal's pelage also plays a role. Every jaguar's pattern is different, a kind of finger print. But, no matter the pattern, the pelage always allows the jaguar to transform in a way - to blend in - to become one with the surrounding environment.

In several Indigenous cultures, transformation ceremonies are held. Shaman dress in jaguar skins, mimic the jaguar, and sing to the jaguar spirit. They use narcotic snuff to establish contact with the jaguar spirit. During this ritual, it is believed that the shaman's soul transforms into a jaguar and wanders in the forest (Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1975).

I have researched and read these stories and always tried to piece them together with the iauaretê story. I am never sure of how one influences the other, or when one becomes the other, and if one of these shaman is the iauaretê.

***

The next day, I am walking the same trail, but with Emiliano. We communicate freely with one another, in both English and Portuguese. However, Emiliano almost never speaks to me in Portuguese. We fell in love in English, so although Portuguese is eons more romantic, English is our language of love.

He has already heard Louise and me joking about nossa onςa, ‘our jaguar' that I smelled.

When he heard, he laughed too. Ahhh...Bαby Jo! Brandinha...engraçαda. Yeah, that's right, it sure will be engraςada when we catch that goddamned jaguar I smelled.

Emiliano teases me, but I know that he believes. This is why he chose to check these traps on this trail this day, and with me. Emiliano has faith in my supernatural powers.

“We're almost there,” I look back at him, walking with a faster pace than usual.

20 He smiles slightly and shakes his head, “Okay, Baby Jo.” He purses his lips like he's going to blow a kiss, but doesn't. He always does this, to tease me.

The area definitely still smells like a jaguar. Yes, it reeks. I get a good whiff, inhaling deep. “Don't you smell it? It's so strong, so distinct. You've caught more jaguars than me, you should know.”

“Oi. Brandinha. What exactly does a jaguar smell like?”

I sigh. I sniff around again, like the day before, tail up, nose down. Emiliano joins in my investigation, using his eyes instead of his nose.

And guess what we find? Paw prints. Onçapintada paw prints. They are everywhere in the mud, left behind by the jaguar after the midnight rain.

***

I am dying to catch another jaguar- the scent trail is taunting. The smell on the trail is now stronger than that of my hammock. I am no longer dreaming of jaguars.

At night, when I read in my hammock with the solar powered light on, insects are attracted to the bulb. They creep in by the army through cracks in the mesh windows. If I leave the hammock to go pee, I return to a full hammock. Who is in my hammock, I wonder, watching it sag under the weight. Insects. Hordes of them. I shake them out. Sometimes while sleeping, I squirm, dreaming that they are still in the hammock with me.

One night, I dream not of bugs sharing my bed, but of uma cobra - that bright green snake we occasionally see on the trail. The one that everyone tells me to stay far away from because it is very poisonous. I dream of him slithering, slithering over the raised roots of a fig tree and then coiling up. I am walking with Emiliano and he goes to step right on that coil, so I yell uma cobra!

21 In real life, I snap straight up in my hammock, sweating, yelling the same thing, “Uma

cobra!”

Emiliano, who sleeps about a foot away from me in his own hammock, gasps awake,

“What? A snake?” Louise, a foot to my right in her hammock, still sleeps. “Baby Jo, a snake?

Where?” Emiliano whispers.

“I was dreaming.”

“Jeeze. You scared me.”

“Hey.. .I was dreaming in Portuguese!”

“Yeah, of snakes. Go back to sleep.”

***

The next afternoon I am checking traps with Ferro and Emiliano. Ferro and I wait in the

boat as Emiliano climbs up the steep river bank, checking a trap not too far in a floresta. Ferro is

a Native from the reserve and is the glue of this project, doing a little bit of everything. He talks

to me continuously when we're together. I love to listen to him, know I could learn so much

from him, but I can rarely understand him because his accent is different. Que? I always say,

você pode dizer isso de novo? Can you say that again?

“Nós vamos pegar a onça que você cheirou. Será uma onçapreta. ”” Ferro thinks we will

catch the jaguar I smell, and that it will be a black jaguar. He begins heckling hysterically, “Uma

onçapreta...podemos chamá-la Xuxa'" The thought of this makes me snicker too. A black jaguar named after the girl who looks like Xuxa and is as white as the moon.

***

Jaguars are elegantly powerful in appearance. Their dinner-plate sized paws and bulky

head and necks give them a more stalky, muscular impression than most of their Felidae family

22 members. Small, rounded ears rest on top of the massive head. Their eyes, big with golden- yellow-as-the-sun irises and black circular pupils, give a stare that penetrates. When open, the gaping mouth reveals long, smooth, robust canine teeth. Surrounding the mouth, highly sensitive whiskers fan out; so sensitive, they allow the jaguar to find its way, even in complete darkness

(Coe, 1972).

The body of a jaguar, ranging from bright orange to a light, tawny brown, is covered with black markings. These markings are called rosettes. A jaguar's black rosettes are irregularly shaped and are not solid spots. In the center of these budding roses, the animal's orange color persists and is usually spotted with one to three smaller, solid, black dots. Along the tail, the orange fades to a light cream or white and the rosettes morph to form a few thick, black stripes.

The cheeks, neck, belly, and leg areas also fade to white, but in those places the rosettes become smaller, solid black spots. Upon gazing at a jaguar, the Portuguese name of these animals, onςa pintada, becomes clear - each one painted so delicately, so uniquely.

Black jaguars, or melanistic, only appear all black. The ornate rosette patterns can still be seen, glimmering in sunlight. In Portuguese, the black jaguars lose pintada from their name and are called onça preta, literally meaning ‘black jaguar.' Many Indigenous cultures believe that black jaguars are larger and fiercer than the colorfully spotted ones (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002).

***

Today, during our midday slumber, I am baking some rosemary garlic bread. Daniel peels the garlic and minces it for me while I sprinkle in the rosemary. Daniel speaks both English and Portuguese, and together we speak a bit of both. He is helping me to learn more.

As I begin to knead the bread, he asks, “When are you going to bake me another apple pie? Your apple pies are so delicious.”

23 “I'll bake you an apple pie after we catch another jaguar. But you have to help me peel

the apples.” He agrees to this. Daniel and I love to cook together.

While the bread bakes, aroma filling this small floating base, he and I sit in my hammock

together, talking of jaguars, of places travelled, of the Itaipava beer we miss in Tefe. Daniel was

a brother of mine in a past life, I am sure of this.

Emiliano pops his head into the room. “What are you guys up to?”

“Nothing,” we reply in unison, like two children, giggling.

“The bread smells good.”

“Obrigada,” I reply.

***

That evening, I check traps with Louise. Still looking for nossa onca - our jaguar. Riding

in the boat, we call to it, just like Chapinha sums Coronel. Nossa onça.nossa.. onça.kissy kiss,

onde eskι... ? Where are you.?

But, Louise and I, we don't find our onca, not today. Slightly disappointed, we ride

quietly back to the flutuante base. From the distance, as we approach the floating house, I see

Emiliano waving excitedly. Ferro is joining in, laughing, arms in the air.

A jaguar has been caught. They found my goddamned jaguar in the foot lasso. Bet you'll

never guess where? Yep, where I smelled him.

***

Jaguars are lonesome creatures. Solitary animals that travel, hunt, and feed alone. Like all

predators, each individual jaguar has a home range. This range must be large enough to feed the jaguar. Although on occasion home ranges may overlap, jaguars of the same sex generally avoid

using the same areas at the same time, which could lead to conflict (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002).

24 A fight to the death. The size of a jaguar's home range depends on many factors, including the type of habitat and density of future meals. Additionally, the size of a jaguar's home range in the tropics can fluctuate vastly between the wet and dry seasons (Gudger, 1964).

In order to communicate with one another about who's living where, jaguars will drop

feces, spray urine, mark with their claws, and use vocalizations. The vocalization of a jaguar is a

series of deep, captivating, guttural grunts, rather than one long roar. These signs broadcast a

message to other jaguars: this is mine.

***

Together, we all scramble around the base, gathering our supplies. Louise grabs all of her veterinary equipment. Emiliano the tranquilizing darts. I put the camera in my backpack. Ferro

and Daniel grab clipboards, pens, the scale. Chapinha wraps up the still warm bread I baked.

Each of us puts on our project shirt, but I don't want to wear mine. My shirt is different from the

others. It is white like the moon. Everyone else's shirt is black. My team members thought this would be funny.

"It's fine. Just put it on,” Emiliano tells me, iAnd hurry, we have to go.”

All of us cram into the boats, cheering, elated, ecstatic, riding into the pink setting sun. I

put my arm around Louise, and speak into her ear, "Oi...aproxima...nossa onça'' The next one,

our jaguar. She smiles and nudges my shoulder. Little do we know that I can accurately predict the future.

Daniel, sitting on my other side, reminds me that I owe him an apple pie. I sure do.

“Oi, Ferro,” I yell out over the motor. He looks back. “É uma onçapreta ?" It's a black jaguar?

“Não. Pintada. Não Xuxa''

25 Oh well, I think. At least I was the one to smell it.

***

This jaguar we caught, it's no wonder I smelled him. He is a big one. And an angry one - an alpha male, no doubt. He is not used to having visitors in his well-marked territory. He pounces forward in the darkness, yowls and hisses. His eyes glow a fierce amber in our headlamps as he claws at the night; but the jaguar remains held back by the foot snare. The

Mayan creation myth has come full circle, as our weapons and tools have, in this instance, gained control of the jaguar.

Although this is the most aggressive jaguar I'll ever catch - even named Zangado, which simply translates to ‘angry' - he is not my favorite, nor the most memorable, or even the most beautiful of them all. But, Zangado, he is the only one I smelled, and the scent led me right to him. He might have caught me if we hadn't caught him first.

And what exactly does a jaguar smell like, you may ask? A bit like baby food. Apple baby food, to be precise. Mixed with a deep, earthy musk - like the forest floor after a thundering rain.

26 3.1: References

Coe, M. D. (1972). Olmec jaguars and Olmec kings. In E.P. Benson (Ed.), The cult of the feline (1-18). Washington, D.C.: Trustees for Harvard University.

Crawshaw, P. G., & Quigley, H. B. (1991). Jaguar spacing, activity, and habitat use in a seasonally flooded environment in Brazil. Journal of Zoology 223, 357-370. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1991.tb04770.x

Emmons, L. H. (1987). Comparative feeding ecology of felids in a neotropical rain forest. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 20(4), 271-283. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00292180

Emmons, L. H. (1989). Jaguar predation on chelonians. Journal of Herpetology 23(3), 311-314. https://doi.org/10.2307/1564460

Gudger, E. W. (1946). Does the jaguar use his tail as a lure in fishing. Journal of Mammalogy 27(1), 37-49. https://doi.org/10.2307/1375140

Hoogesteijn, R., & Mondolfi, E. (1992). The Jaguar. Caracas, Venezuela: Armitano Publishers.

Rabinowitz, A. R. (2014). When jaguars talked to men. In An indomitable beast: the remarkable journey of the jaguar. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (1975). The shaman and the jaguar: a study of drugs among the Indians of Colombia. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Seymour, K. L. (1989). Panthera onca. Mammalian Species 340, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.2307/3504096

Sunquist, M., & Sunquist, F. (2002). Jaguar. In Wild cats of the world (305-317). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Van Valkenvurgh, B., & Ruff, C. B. (1987). Canine tooth strength and killing behavior in large carnivores. Journal of Zoology 212, 379-397. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1987.tb02910.x

27 Chapter 4: “A River's Balance”

Part I: The Tranquility of a River

For over a decade, my life has revolved around rivers- swimming, canoeing, floating, or rafting them. Even living on them. My fixation with rivers began at the age of nineteen years old, when I went tubing down the Ichetucknee River in northern Florida. I floated, staring up at the tops of cypress trees covered in hanging Spanish moss and spider webs that glistened in the sunlight. My gaze slowly worked its way down to the large buttresses of the trees and their pneumataphores, the roots typical of cypress that creep back out of the water, looking like old, bent knees. The surface of the water reflected the sun, and small insects danced. I decided I had to be in the river, so I put my goggles on and submerged myself in the 72° spring fed water.

While under water, I inspected the aquatic plants, combing blades of silky river grass through my fingers. Along the edges of the river, in patches of river grasses, I searched for fish and found massive gar.

I climbed back onto my tube, but in an elated state of mind. Holy shit, I thought. This water is boiling up out of the ground. I felt almost overwhelmed by this detail. Boiling up out of the ground - cold, clean, clear water! And then these fish, the turtles, the grasses and trees and spiders and gnats and me and all of it, we're all here and alive and well because this water is boiling up out of the ground! Here I was, floating down the Ichetucknee River, experiencing what some might call Nirvana. I'd found it - it was the wilderness, especially those natural highways that bisect their way through the landscape: rivers. In the river's solitude (it was much too early in the year for others to be on the river that day), I'd found a sense of peace I had never known to search for.

28 Later that year, during the summer, I headed back to the Ichetucknee to once again revel

in its beauty and solitude. But solitude is not what I found. During the summer season, this river

was nothing but a melting pot of sunscreen, cellulite, and brightly colored tubes. You could

easily drown below the mob of visitors, unable to find a place to surface, or effortlessly make

your way down the river, walking from tube to tube without ever having gotten wet. If you're

looking for a near religious experience on the Ichetucknee River, you must venture there

sometime between the fall and spring seasons.

During the next few years in Florida, I spent my summer vacations floating and

swimming down small rivers and my winters canoeing larger ones. In the summer of 2012, I had

the opportunity to work on a climate research project in Siberia, where I lived on a barge on the

Kolyma River. The waters of the Kolyma were much too cold for lengthy swims, although I did jump in on occasion. Many mornings, or evenings, for the sun was always shining there (that

darn perpetual arctic sun), I sat with a cup of tea on the deck of the barge staring at the

expansive, nut-brown waters of the river. One day, a tugboat pulled the barge downriver, all the

way to the mouth of the Arctic Ocean, where the water became rough and black.

Six months after living on the Kolyma River in Siberia, I was living on a floating house,

this time on the waters of the Amazon River. Although the water was vastly warmer there, I did

not do much swimming, due to the incredibly high concentration of (aggressive!) caiman. Jacare

is what Brazilians call them. The river and surrounding floodplain forest (várzea) teemed with

life. Pods of river dolphins swam past our boats, bands of squirrel monkeys crossed above my

head in the forest, and egrets waded through river grass to stalk their lunch.

I continued to observe how rivers brought life to the landscape and began to understand

they also brought life to me.

29 Part II: White Water

When I first moved to Canon City, Colorado, I had no intentions of falling in love with whitewater, or even partaking. It was simple: I didn't know what I was doing with my life, so I went to go live in the desert in a trailer set in a campground down by a river. Each week, I worked a few hours at the campground store and in return the owners let me stay in an old

1960's camper of theirs. This freed up my time so that I could walk for hours on end each day

along various parts of the river, contemplating the curiosities of life and what it all meant and what the hell was I even doing? At night I confined my walking to pacing back and forth within

my tiny camper - which only allowed for about three steps each way, back and forth - and

drinking beer, reading self-help books about why women hate their bodies and how to use the

power of projection to positively influence your life.

However, the campground was across the street from a rafting company, River Runners, where a good friend of mine had previously worked for eight summer seasons. He had given one

of the “river rats” my phone number, so it was only a matter of time before I would be yanked

out of my trailer and thrown in a rubber raft. To be honest, at first, I was terrified. When I

received a call inviting me to join a play trip down the Royal Gorge section of the Arkansas

river, I searched my head for excuses.

Only one came to mind: “I don't have any of the right gear!”

But my attempt to avoid the trip failed. Those river rats rounded up a wetsuit, PFD

(personal floatation device - “guaranteed to float you, not save you”), a helmet, and a paddle. I was given a general safety talk (don't fall out of the boat; if you do fall out, get back in the boat;

don't stand in the river; if the boat flips and when you come up from the water it's dark and

smells like feet, you're under the boat, so make your way out from under), taught how to paddle,

30 and off I went in a fourteen-foot rubber raft with a seasoned guide, Justin, and his girlfriend,

Lisette.

I'm not sure if either of them noticed the quiver in my voice or the perpetual shake in my hands, but if they did, nothing was said. After shoving off from shore, the boat was immediately thrust between jagged rock walls and large boulders on either side of the bank. We quickly approached the first succession of rapids: Primero, Segundo, and Tercero. Justin guided the boat with ease through each, riding the pillows of water that formed around rocks, which brought me some comfort. Still, I knew one of the biggest rapids, Sunshine Falls, was creeping up. My stomach churned. My mouth was dry. My breath was quick and shallow (probably also because of that PFD cinching down on my lungs).

Before I knew it, we had reached Sunshine Falls. The rock walls of the canyon had grown taller and narrower. Looking ahead, at the rapid, all I could see were boulders as big as our boat and water swirling around them before dropping below the horizon line. The rumble of the rapid echoed on the rock. I could see no specific path - and I only hoped Justin could. But as we rode the glassy tongue into the frothing white water, something inside me changed. My fear transformed into excitement. The adrenaline rushed through my veins and I hollered shouts of joy as we paddled through the crests of waves and Justin maneuvered us through the maze.

Continuing downriver, we soon entered the heart of the gorge. Cliff walls shot up, straight out of the river, 1,000 feet above our heads (!), and looked as if they reached the blue sky. The canyon had also grown more narrow, still, in some spots just wide enough for our raft.

After paddling through the Narrows, and other rapids with names like Sledge Hammer,

Wallslammer, and Boat Eater, our fleet of rafts eddied out in a spot called Corner Pocket. Corner

Pocket is a small, boulder-covered beach along the riverbank within the deep cliffs of the gorge

31 after all of the major rapids. Looking downstream from corner pocket, a sliver of sky can be seen between the towering rock walls on either side of the river, casting shadows on the water below.

We cracked beers, passed around a flask of whiskey (for the warmth, of course) and celebrated.

It wasn't a celebration of conquer, but rather a thank you to the river gods for safe passage.

Several of the boaters asked how I was enjoying the ride, and my only reply was, “I love this.”

One of them laughed and said, “Next thing you know, you'll be wanting to guide.”

I laughed too, and shrugged off this notion - no way' But, regardless, the deed had been done. I had fallen in love. So much in love, that I got a job working in the office of the rafting company, running shuttles to the river when needed, booking trips, selling photos, and packing lunches. Many days after work, I headed to the river. On my days off - few and far between when working a seasonal job - I also headed to the river. My hunger for the river was insatiable.

Part III: An Out of Boat Experience

Unfortunately, while going through a rapid you can't always control whether or not you are going to stay in the raft or end up in the river. There are both plusses and minuses to this.

If you fall out of the raft, or flip the raft, it is a learning experience. When a river feature demands your attention by way of flipping your raft, or jolting you out of the boat, you are unlikely to ever forget that feature. Thus, you now know the river slightly better than before.

Sometimes, swimming a rapid can even be fun, but whether it is a ‘good' swim or a ‘bad' swim, it almost always makes for a great story.

32 Having said that, only sometimes is swimming a rapid enjoyable. It can also be terrifying, and at times, incredibly dangerous. Swimming could result in numerous types of injuries, or in extreme cases, death.

Inevitably, if you raft on a regular basis, you will swim. My new friends had a saying: we're all just in between swims, and before each trip I took on the river, I wondered, will today be the day?

On a hot day in mid-July, several of us had planned on doing a play trip down the river after work. However, the workday finished later than expected, so half the group decided not to go. Following the quick change of plans, I bounced back and forth in my head about whether or not I should go. Ultimately, I decided, why not? After closing up the office and hurriedly gathering my gear, I hopped in the van that was bound for the river.

Almost immediately after taking my seat in the van, queasiness in my stomach overcame me. I had an uncanny feeling that I was going to have my first swim. On this particular trip I would be paddling with two second year guides, Tara and J-tini, who were training to check out

(be approved to officially take customers) on the Royal Gorge section of the river. Although I trusted both of their abilities to get us down the river, I was still nervous. While riding in the van,

I contemplated changing my mind and making up some lame excuse for why I had to go back.

Nothing believable came to me, and I also knew it was too late to flake on my decision. A voice in the back of my head told me to face the fear and get the swim over with. If it didn't happen today, it was going to another day. There's no better time than now, I thought.

I voiced nothing and we continued the trip as usual, setting shuttle, strapping our gear into the boats, and then pushing off the shore. J-tini sat in the back, acting as guide, while Tara

33 and I sat across from one another, paddling in sync with each other in relation to J-tini's

commands. Most of the river trip carried on as usual too, until we reached Wallslammer.

The rapid Wallslammer is in the true heart of the gorge, when the slick, sheer walls are as

tall as they get and the river is narrow. When entering Wallslammer, it's necessary to stay away

from the left side of the river, which is a boulder garden, and thus a bad place to be. There is a

passageway on river right, but it's also important to keep distance from the right wall of the

gorge, which forms a cave-like spot where you or your boat could potentially be slammed

against the wall and indefinitely pinned by the force of water.

Fearing the looming wall that we were hastily approaching, we paddled the boat slightly

more left than it should have been. In an instant, the left side of our boat forcefully hit a rock,

which spun us around and sent me flying out of the boat and into the river. My body landed in

the water, where the temperature was an extreme contrast from the dry heat of July, and my butt

landed on a rock. Then, the swift current picked me up, taking me where, I wasn't sure, other

than it was downstream.

Deep in my core, I always knew my first swim would be in Wallslammer. That summer,

a local brewery released a seasonal beer and with each six-pack came a poker chip with a rapid

name - collect them all and win a prize! Only, I kept collecting Wallslammer. Each time I journeyed down the river, I avoided looking at the imminent, cake-like wall for which the rapid

was named. All summer, Wallslammer called out to me for attention, and I refused to pay heed.

Eventually, that river feature was obliged to demand my attention.

When having an out of boat experience you must think and act without delay. While

timing your breathing with the calms and crests of the river, two things should immediately cross

your mind. 1) Don't stand up in the river! Get those feet up and swim! Swim where? 2) Swim

34 back to the boat! If this isn't possible, and there are no safer spots to swim, roll over and put your

feet down stream of you - this is what rafters call ‘nose and toes' because both are up above the

water. Imagine having to swim a rapid: would you rather your face or your feet bounce off the

rocks, taking the brunt of the beating?

Fortunately, once my body communicated to my brain that something was awry and I

wasn't quite where I was supposed to be, I was not far from the raft. I was slightly disoriented,

water swirling around my head, rocks all around me, but I could hear Tara yelling, “Brandi, back

here!”

I put my feet behind me and swam the short distance back to the boat, fighting the current to head upstream. Swimming upstream seems to get a person nowhere. Tara stuck out the T-grip

side of her paddle toward me, and as I grabbed onto it, she pulled me the rest of the way. While

Tara pulled me back into the boat, J-tini, who was guiding the raft, continued to steer. Although the cold water and upstream swim had taken the breath out of me, there was no time to rest. Tara

and I had to immediately resume paddling through the rest of Wallslammer. I grabbed my

paddle, and Tara and I followed J-tini's commands in unison. Seconds later, we had survived,

and I was gleefully cheering.

Now with the majority of rapids behind us, we reached Corner Pocket for our customary

festivities. After cracking beers and cheers-ing to the gorge, J-tini apologized to me. “Brandi Jo,

I'm sorry, it's my fault you swam. I shouldn't have gone so far left.”

But I would not have his apology. “There is nothing to be sorry for!” I explained my

logic to him: the idea of my first swim had been looming over my head, making me anxious.

Now, not only was it over with, but it was a good experience. I fell out, I swam, I got right back

in the boat, and all was well. While he and I walked around the small beach together, my right

35 butt cheek was throbbing. I realized I was going to have a bruise, which secretly filled me with delight. I love small battle wounds to show for obstacles overcome.

In the days that followed, I did have a lovely (and evolving) battle wound to show for my swim. The bruise, which ranged from the deep reds and purples of a sunset to the dark yellows and greens of a forest, spanned the entire side of my right cheek - and I took pride in it. If someone asked how my first swim was, I pulled my pants down a tad and flashed the bruise. I even took a picture of the bruise and sent it to my parents, which in hindsight, I'm sure did not make them feel at ease about my new hobby.

Part IV: The Power of a River

Soon, my glorious summer on the Arkansas River seemed to be winding down, with the

Colorado rafting season coming to an end. During my time in Colorado, I'd met a handsome, witty guide named Dale, who also worked at the rafting company. Throughout the summer, we'd taken a liking to one another. With the season coming to an end, we decided to adventure elsewhere together. Dale suggested we go to West Virginia, where he had worked the previous three rafting seasons and the season lasts through October. Throughout the summer, I'd encountered guides (such as Dale and others) who had rafted and worked on the Gauley River in

West Virginia. Their stories about the Gauley were always over the top and farfetched, like an old urban legend. I heard people on the Gauley flipped their boats for fun and that sometimes they surfed large hydraulics in their rafts instead of avoiding or punching through them. Almost every story involved ‘carnage' - out of boat experiences.

36 These stories piqued my interest. Half of my family also lived only two hours from the

Gauley River. So, together, Dale and I decided to haul ourselves across the country to ‘West-by-

God-Virginia' for the Fall Gauley River season, where I would raft (and swim) other rivers.

*

The Gauley is an ancient river, flowing through one of the world's oldest mountain ranges, the Appalachians. Beginning near Gauley Mountain in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia, it flows southwest until reaching Summersville Lake, created by the

Summersville Dam. Six weeks during the fall of every year, water is released from the dam, reviving the raging river's path and bringing whitewater lovers from all over the world to experience it. After rushing through sections of steep drops in elevation, the water flows to meet the New River, where the two join in holy matrimony to create the Kanawha River.

My first time down the Gauley River was what I'll call exciting, but in truth was more tiring than exciting. In reality, it's not possible I spent more time in the water than I did in the boat, but that's how it seemed. All in all, I swam five times that day, and three of those times were because our raft flipped, on purpose. Two of the flips were from intentionally surfing hydraulics (the rumors were true!), one of which had the ominous name Hungry Mother.

Exhausted from taxing swims and bone-chillingly cold dam released water, my memory of this trip is mostly a haze.

Later that week, I was invited back on the Gauley, but told that I would stay in the boat for more of this trip. A woman named Jobeth wanted paddlers for the day while she practiced guiding for the annual Animal Race. During this race, competitors paddle continuously and attempt to run all rapids as smoothly as possible, avoiding scenarios that would potentially set

37 them back in the race, such as surfing or flipping. Knowing this, I agreed to go, hoping for a

somewhat calmer day on the Gauley.

Upon reaching the dam, we discovered the water being released was higher than usual,

around 3,200 cubic feet per second, as opposed to the normal 2,800, due to recent torrential

rainfall. The rest of my group, composed of Dale, our friend Healy, and our guide Jobeth, all had

extensive experience on the Gauley. Each of them felt more than comfortable with this water

level, so we pushed forward with our preparation and soon put our raft in the water. Jobeth

finessed the boat through several rapids, including two of the Class V rapids, Insignificant and

Pillow Rock. I enjoyed experiencing the Gauley from the boat, rather than in the water.

Eventually, the time came when we were approaching the infamous Lost Paddle, the third

of the five Class V rapids on this section of river. Our plan was to “eddy out” above Lost Paddle

in the calm waters behind large rocks and out of the main current, discuss the four separate drops

of the rapid, and remind me where I should swim if I fell out in any of the drops. Although the

Gauley river guides were wild and would flip their boats just about anywhere, Lost Paddle was the rapid where no one dared try, where no one wanted to try - it was a rapid that was neither fun

nor safe to swim. And it was a long rapid, composed of four separate drops in elevation. Halfway through the rapid there is a rock named Six Pack (after beer or a stomach, I've never quite been

sure), which is to be avoided at all costs for fear of pinning or flipping the raft against it. The

rocky shores of Lost Paddle are also dangerous, and if you fall out during the rapid it is

important to not swim to the shore for safety. Safety is not what will be found, only large undercut rocks, where time has allowed the fast moving water to carve its way through or under the rock using the path of least resistance. These undercut rocks pose a problem because a

swimmer could potentially get lodged or stuck where the water forces through.

38 Upstream of Lost Paddle, a tributary named Meadow Creek flows into the Gauley River.

Normally, this is a small creek with minimal water flowing through it. During intense rainstorms

or large snowmelts, this little creek swells up with enough water for kayakers to run it.

Advancing toward Meadow Creek, the experienced guides in my boat quickly noticed the creek

appeared abnormal. Meadow Creek was overflowing. Tons of murky, brown water gushed

forcefully into the clear blue-green water of the Gauley. Although we didn't know the numbers

at the time, Meadow Creek was spewing 5,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) into the Gauley, bringing the water up to over 8,000cfs, a huge leap from the 3,200 we had been experiencing all

day.

In a matter of moments, the surging swift water from Meadow Creek sent our raft

plunging downstream. So fast, there was no time to eddy out - Lost Paddle was here. A slight wave of panic swept through the raft. Healy, Jobeth, and Dale's voices seemed to have lost their

collected cool and the bottom line was: what should we do?! Everyone, dumbfounded by the

river's drastic change, unable to stop in the eddy, was guessing what to expect in the rapid.

Abruptly, the torch of guiding was passed to Dale, who quickly hopped to the back of the boat as we entered the first drop of Lost Paddle.

His voice was quick and shrill as he shouted, “All forward, hard!”

At flood stage, a river that you know can become unrecognizable. Portions of rapids can be washed out and easier, while others more difficult. Large rocks that normally reach up out of

the water are now concealed under, and can become titanic holes that could swallow a boat whole. Regardless of any changes, one thing is for certain: the water is moving fast and you must

too.

39 As we flew through the tumultuous waters of first drop - which looked unrecognizable to the guides in my boat so familiar with the rapid - Dale yelled, “Six Pack rock is under water!”

Not only was Six Pack Rock under water, but all the rocks were, forming huge hydraulics all throughout the rapid. The water coursed between the boulderous banks, funneled so tightly in such a narrow space. We, too, were being funneled into the second drop of Lost Paddle, the notorious Hawaii 5-O wave. Normally, this wave is massive - and on this day it reached above our heads, resembling a tsunami from our boat, which now felt tiny. The boat stood up vertically with a slight angle, curling with the wave, and before I had time to react I was under water.

In an instant, I was sucked down, deep into the river, by the forceful water of Hawaii 5-

O. The sudden sensation of the cold water pulling my limbs every which way was disorienting.

Confused, I tried to orient myself toward the light I knew must be the surface. The forceful water, swirling all around me, made it difficult to move my arms in the direction I wanted. When my head finally popped above the surface, I took a deep breath, ready to be sucked back down. I caught a glimpse of our boat, upstream, and saw it was still right side up with Dale, Healy, and

Jobeth in it. All the while, I continued to be swept downstream, farther and farther from the boat.

I needed to be aware of what I was moving toward and feeling the pull of the current quicken, I faced forward. I was, indeed, being pulled toward a large hole, or hydraulic. Terrified,

I swam as strongly as I could away from the middle of the hole. Nevertheless, I was pulled back under. Again, I fought to reach the surface, against the whirl of water all around me, pulling my limbs and pushing me down. I curled up in a ball in hopes that the hole would spit me out instead of swallow me. Bobbing up again (thank technology for PFDs!) and catching my breath, I saw I had passed another raft while under water. The two in this raft were paddling as fast as they could, heading toward me, yelling for me to swim to them. Adrenaline charging through my

40 body, I swam with every ounce of strength I possessed. It was not enough. In such fast water,

lightweight bodies are carried more quickly than the heavy rubber rafts, loaded with people and

gear. On top of this, swimming against the forceful current of a flood stage river is a formidable task. One of the paddlers grabbed his safety throw bag, threw his rope to me with excellent

accuracy, and I grabbed hold of it. He pulled me toward the boat, trying to rescue me before Lost

Paddle's fourth drop, Tumble Home.

Just as the boat and I began to drop into Tumble Home, he pulled me halfway in, enough

for him to let go and me to hold on. My legs still dangling in the water, he took hold of his

paddle - the two in the raft needed to make sure they didn't end up in the water as well. I held on tightly, still in shock from my swim, but thankful to be holding onto something, even if still

halfway in the water, my legs bashing against occasional rocks.

Finally, after Tumble Home, I pulled myself all the way into their raft. I showered them

with thanks- my breath almost completely gone - as they paddled the boat into an eddy below

Lost Paddle that was not washed out like most of the others. Moments later, the boat with Dale,

Healy, and Jobeth reached the eddy too.

They were joyous to see me, all smiles, open arms, welcoming me back into the raft. My body was shaking so much from nerves as I climbed back in and I could barely speak. Dale

embraced me tight and whispered, “I'm sorry.”

My voice trembled as I replied, “It's not your fault. I thought the boat flipped.”

Now, in light of the flood and in a calm, safe eddy, the group needed to discuss our new

strategies and what to expect at the remaining class V rapids. I'd heard about an old road up the

mountain, tucked in the woods, which ran parallel to the Gauley. I announced that my personal

strategy would be to hike up to that road and walk the rest of the river.

41 “Are you sure?” Dale asked.

“You could ride in the boat and walk around the rest of the rapids,” Healy added.

I thought about this for a moment. Then I thought about the river above Lost Paddle and

how there was really no way to stop.

“If I can, I'd really just like to walk. It'll help calm me down and get my jitters out.” I

had one goal: to get the hell out of that boat with my feet on land. “Plus, I don't have the energy to swim again. That took it all.”

Dale, Healy, and Jobeth agreed they would be okay without me in the raft, and that it was

potentially for the better since the chances of me being thrown back into the river were high.

Leaving the boat behind, I hiked up the steep mountainside, carving my own path through thick rhododendron. The ground was littered with the first of fall's leaves that crunched beneath

my feet. Now away from the roar of the river, which I could still faintly hear below, the small

sounds - my breathing, leaves rustling - sounded so loud. Luckily, the road I'd heard of was real

and once I came upon it, walking was a straight shot.

I trekked alone to our car, shaking, from adrenaline, from being cold, and contemplated what had happened. I felt somewhat embarrassed that I left the boat - ashamed I wouldn't even

run the smaller rapids in the raft, or walk around the larger ones on the river bank. Walking along the winding road beneath the hardwood canopy, I rehashed my time in the water at Lost Paddle

again and again. I wondered whether or not I could ever get back into a raft. If I ever wanted to

get back into a raft. Or, if I should get back into a raft. Did I deserve to be in a boat if I couldn't

handle swimming a rapid? Truly, if a person does not want or aim to swim, or is afraid of

swimming, does that person have any business in a whitewater boat? Like I'd learned in

42 Colorado, aren't all whitewater boaters just in between swims? If I wasn't ready for another swim, then maybe whitewater wasn't for me.

Engulfed by the violent forces of a river, I quickly forgot how a river could also be tranquil.

Part V: The Balance of Forces

Just as I had recognized how rivers brought life to the landscape and imagined them also bringing life to me, I was reminded of how a river could easily take life or wreak havoc, especially by the destructive forces of flash floods. Not to mention all of a river's constant intimidating forces: undercuts, hydraulics, strainers, sieves, etc.It.. is natural to fear these things, and, honestly, naïve to not. However, fear can become irrational, blanketing you in darkness and scrambling your thoughts, gripping you so tightly that you are unable to breathe or think clearly.

This type of irrational fear is dangerous because when you are not able to think clearly, poor decisions - or no decisions at all - are made. On the river, and in many other scenarios, when fear impedes a person's ability to make decisions, critical situations worsen.

Rational fear, on the other hand, is healthy. A rational fear of the river is respect for the river and all of its forces. Rational fear does not consume you, but gives you a sense of awareness for what could happen. It allows you to think clearly and focus on the task at hand, leading you to consider safety strategies for potential situations.

Here lies the key difference between rational and irrational fear on the river. An example of irrational fear would be: if x happens and I fall out of the raft, I might drown and die. End of thought. Rational fear, instead, sparks an actual process in the mind. What can I do to avoid x from happening? If x does happen, how should I react to minimize consequences? If I end up in

43 the water, where should I swim? How can I best rescue others that fall in the water? Where is the next safe place to take the boat and regroup? This type of thought sequence, brought on by rational fear, is constructive and what every competent boater should always be considering.

Bad swims on a river can provoke irrational fear. A bad swim will remind you, in case you have somehow forgotten, how powerful water can be. A bad swim is a humbling experience.

My swim in Lost Paddle brought both emotions - I was humbled, which is, I believe, a necessary and beneficial emotion to experience on a river, but I also became consumed by an overwhelming amount of irrational fear. Although somewhere in my mind I knew that most out of boat experiences were very different from swimming long, class V rapids during a flash flood, this understanding was pushed deep down, far away into the depths of my brain. When I thought about swimming a rapid, my imagination ran with the irrational fears, creating horrific scenarios.

At first, I believed these emotions would fade, so I avoided rafting for a couple of weeks

(a long time when you live and work at a rafting company), giving my mind time to recover.

Friends would walk by the small cabin Dale and I stayed in, sprinkled amidst the cabins of other employees living at the company, with propositions: Do you want to go boating today? Or,

We're going on a Gauley play trip, you in? I made excuses for each trip, reasons why I was unable, even though it was obvious I could easily join.

Instead of fading, this time only allowed my irrational fear to swell, gripping me tighter, and whispering sinister thoughts to my imagination. Dale knew this and tried to encourage me.

“Brandi, you've got to get back on the water,” he said a few times. However, I continued to say I was not yet ready. “You'll never feel ready. You just have to do it.” Although I knew Dale was right, I shut out his logic and reasoning. I wanted to keep my distance from the Gauley. I felt the

44 Gauley was trying to eat me. Why else would I have swum so many times in that river? It was commanding my attention in more ways than one.

When a couple weeks had passed, and I became aware that my fears had still not lessened, but actually continued to flourish, I made a choice to go back on the river. A little encouraging coercion from Dale helped, “We'll go on the New River,” he said. “It's so much more calm than the Gauley, the water is low right now. Just you and me. We won't surf or flip, we'll take it easy.”

We decided to tag along on a commercial trip, so Dale and I would be in our own boat behind the fleet of rafts with customers. On the bus ride to the river, I sat quietly and could only think of horrible things. Drowning. Getting stuck beneath an undercut rock. Being stuck in a hydraulic, churned by the water. Getting a limb pinned between rocks, flailing under the water.

All of these scenarios also ended with drowning. My heart raced and my stomach was queasy.

This kind of fear, this kind of uneasiness was far worse than before the first time I went whitewater rafting on the Arkansas River.

Down at the beach, my fearful thoughts and physical manifestations intensified. What am

I doing here ? I thought. I don't belong in a boat -I don't want to be in a boat! Why am I going, even? My body trembled and my thoughts raced - mainly about how I did not belong in a boat if

I couldn't handle a swim - just like they had after my Lost Paddle swim. I wanted to back out.

But here I was, at the beach. There was only one way to catch the bus for a ride back home, and that was by floating the river to the take-out spot.

“You okay?” Dale asked.

I wasn't quite ready to let Dale in on the intensity of fear I was experiencing, but I knew I couldn't hide it completely. I'm sure it was obvious to him - wide eyes, a pale face with

45 quivering lips, even though it was at least 80°. “Just a little nervous,” I said. He reassured me once again, and we shoved off the shore, the two of us in a small raft.

As mentioned earlier, eventually the Gauley and New Rivers run together, forming the

Kanawha River. Before reaching this point, the New flows for many miles, beginning its journey in the mountains of North Carolina and gathering warmth from sun all along the way, making the water blissfully warm when reaching West Virginia. The New River is a unique one, flowing north instead of south, cutting its way through the Appalachian Mountains in a puzzling manner.

What causes this phenomenon is the age of the river. Debated to be the oldest river in the world, the New River began carving its way through the landscape before the peaks of Appalachia rose up from the earth. Strangely, although it is possibly the world's oldest river, it is called The New

River.

Shortly after shoving off, floating in the flat water, I began to hear the faint rumble of the approaching first rapid. On cue, I was once again trembling. My breath quickened, my pits were sweating, and my stomach was fluttering with butterflies attempting to escape. Experiencing what felt like a panic attack, my mind had tunnel vision, only imagining worst-case scenarios so bad that they were actually implausible situations, given the river and its water level. Trying to ignore my anxiety, I kept waiting for it to evolve into pure joy, as it had my first time on the

Arkansas River. Unfortunately, that change never came.

The trip downriver was smooth, and, just as Dale had promised, we took it easy, skirting around big waves, taking more conservative routes through rapids. However, no matter how smooth the trip, the emotions I experienced and the irrational fear I dealt with still ransacked my brain.

46 On one occasion that day, Dale and I both fell out of the raft. We were in a relatively uneventful section of the river, not even in a rapid, chatting, floating. A wave called Donkey

Punch curled into the boat and, not ready for the punch, we were gently jolted into the water. As

I rolled out over the edge of the raft, I didn't have time to be fearful. And once in the calm, warm water, there was nothing to be afraid of. Each of us were still holding onto our respective sides of the raft and pulled ourselves back up after only seconds in the water. I was overcome with relief-

I swam and none of the scenarios I'd considered played out. Not even remotely close to anything

I'd imagined.

Dale put his arm around me and smiled, “Remember? Not all swims are bad. Plenty of them are just like that.”

My eyes were wide and wary, “I guess. That wasn't bad. Refreshing, actually.”

Dale had been right- of course I needed to get back on the river. I didn't have to abandon my newfound love out of irrational fear. Instead, I needed to push through my anxieties, spending as much time as possible on rivers and experiencing more “normal” swims. I did not need to forget the wrath of a river, but I needed to remember the peacefulness of a river, regaining the happiness it once gave me.

The process of working through these fears was a long and arduous one. I spent mornings trying to back out of a trip downriver I'd agreed to join, sometimes crying to Dale out of fear.

However, no matter what I battled with beforehand, I almost always pushed myself to go. Nearly every time I could hear the rumble of approaching whitewater I began shaking and was taken over by my irrational fear, once again imagining outlandishly horrible scenarios that were not even realistic. Of course, none of them ever played out. Occasionally, I'd fall out of the raft, but no swim was ever even close to resembling the one I'd experienced in Lost Paddle or the

47 scenarios I imagined. Months passed and I began to remember how I'd fallen in love with

whitewater, regaining the strength and confidence it originally brought me. Finally, I was able to think pragmatically about the river, now with the new insight, skills, and knowledge I had slowly been acquiring.

I realize now, it is this very balance that makes rivers so awe inspiring. A river's tranquility and its destructive power is a combination that commands respect. If rivers were only

peaceful, a glorious sense of thrill and excitement would be lost. On the contrary, if rivers lacked their forgiving serenity and were only turbulent, they would be unimaginably terrifying. Time

and again, I find the river gives me an inner strength that stems from my understanding and

reverence of the river's balance.

48 Chapter 5: “Have You Heard the Good Word of The Bus?”

For Dean “Sasquatch” Wheat. May The Bus now provide you with endless amounts of glorious whitewater in your afterlife. You are loved and missed. Avon, my boater. Avon.

Matthew stands on top of an old, broken-down school bus emblazoned with a peeling

“River Runners” logo and eyes the land that The Bus watches over. He is waiting for a fellow river guide to pass by, an errant soul, someone who needs saving.

Inside The Bus are storage lockers for river guides filled with musty, dusty gear; ashtrays overflowing with stale cigarette butts; and carpet stained with years of wear, tear, and spilled beer. In the front half of The Bus, some of the original seats have been arranged along the walls, forming a long oval. The ceiling, now faded to a pale yellow, is crowded with bumper stickers slapped on by river guides each summer.

Outside The Bus is a long, wooden picnic table, with scores of splinters just waiting to happen, where family dinners are eaten. Beyond that is an open air, dirt floor, rat-ridden kitchen named “The Hootch,” where cooking is done on camp stoves. Store your food in a bin if you don't want the rats to get to it before you do. The rest of the surrounding space consists of the dusty gravel parking lot, the office of River Runners, a parking area for still-in-service buses,

The Holy Gear Shed, and the boat shed, which contains The Board- a whiteboard scribbled with schedules and river guides' names, and a beautiful fleet of Avon Rafts. Avons, arguably the best whitewater rafts ever made, are no longer manufactured, so guides at River Runners praise these rafts. Some are even superstitious, believing the Avons know their way down the river - no help needed.

49 Behind The Bus is the seemingly endless high chaparral desert and the jagged Rocky

Mountains of Colorado. If you look closely, beneath clumps of juniper, occasionally you will

find a tent - the home of a raft guide.

Matthew is surveying all of this, watching and waiting for a fellow guide to pass by.

When someone does, he will yell from the top of The Bus, hoping to spread The Good Word.

This is his daily ritual.

Finally, an unsuspecting nonbeliever walks by, and Matt makes his presence known.

Hello, my boater! Have you heard the good word of The Bus? Well, then I shall enlighten you with the scripture, my boater, of The Bus, The Board, and The Holy Gear Shed - The Holy

Trinity, you see.

The Bus - our God - The Bus is from which it all sprang forth. Always remember, my

boater, what The Bus provideth, The Bus may also taketh. What doth The Bus provide?!

Everything you know, my boater! The Bus provideth The Holy Gear Shed and The Board...and

The Board, well, as you know, my boater, The Board is what provides us with work. Every

evening, as if by magic, our names appear upon The Board, indicating when we shall work the

next sun. But do not be fooled, my boater, this is not magic! This is The Bus providing!

Standing over by the boat shed, Dean hears Matt speaking The Good Word, and runs

over to The Bus, hands in the air, shouting, “Avon, my boater, Avon!” The others crowded

around the boat shed chuckle as Dean runs away; they are familiar with this scene. The gospel of

The Bus is something they hear about every day.

As Dean arrives, the nonbeliever begins to express doubt, “The Holy Gear Shed? What's

so holy about the gear shed?”

50 Matthew and Dean will not have this. From atop this faded orange bus, which is missing

a few tires and has sunken into the ground upon which it sits, Matthew continues proselytizing.

The Holy Gear Shed? No, we do not know all of what The Holy Gear shed does - for The

Bus works in mysterious ways and we cannot understand all of these ways, my boater. What we

do know is that The Holy Gear Shed provides our custies with personal floatation devices that will rise them to the river's surface, may they chunder-

“May they chunder!” Dean chimes in, hands towards the sky, head hanging, swinging

back and forth. The nonbeliever looks up at Matthew, still standing on top of the bus, the sun

forming a halo-like circle around his head. Matthew lights and takes a drag from his cigarette.

Exhales as he speaks.

Yes! We must never scorn The Bus, my boaters, for ifyou do, The Board will scorn you and The Bus shall punish you with low water and custies who cannot paddle or swim! You will

suffer for your sins, my boater, if you do not respect The Holy Trinity and submit to The Bus!

Hands still up, Dean yells, “Avon, my boater! Avon!”

A few members of the congregation have begun to crowd around The Bus, Dean, and the

nonbeliever, listening to their daily sermon and helping to spread The Good Word. “Avon, my

boater! Avon!” They yell in unison with Dean. From the ground, they look back up to Matthew.

Avon. We must submit to The Bus and praise The Bus, for The Bus has brought us our peak - our high water - and the second peak is coming, my boaters! The water shall rise again!

The small crowd cheers excitedly; they are patiently waiting for the second coming.

Dean's face is radiant as he smiles, hands still up, once again yelling, “Avon, my boater!

Believe that what he says is true! Trust me - I have been saved! And The Bus hath provided for

me.. .provided me with day after day of Royal Gorge trips, high water, custies with strong arms

51 that can paddle and do not fall out and get scrapey-bleedies.” Dean speaks these words, towering

over his fellow River Runner, the nonbeliever, hand now on his shoulder. He is a man you believe, a good disciple for The Bus, because he is already a mythic creature that stands over

seven feet tall. The formed crowd knows that what Dean speaks is true; they nod their heads and

give an Avon here and there.

By this point, Matthew has climbed the ladder down from the top of The Bus, discarded

his cigarette, entered the crowd, and is standing on the other side of this unsuspecting

nonbeliever of a boatman. Matthew places his left hand on the nonbeliever's other shoulder,

while his right hand holds a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The nonbeliever now stands between both

Matthew and Dean, each of their hands on a shoulder of his, surrounded by a circle of believers.

Matthew looks deeply into his eyes.

You must believe, my boater. For, if you do not, the custies...they will crawl from their

R.V.s, fast-food in hand, and wish to be in your boat on the lowest of water days. Believe me, my

boater. And trust me when I say, if you do believe, The Bus will provide for you in this life and

the afterlife as well.

Together, Matthew and Dean walk away, Avon-ing one another, speaking, dreaming, of the second coming. The crowd dissipates, and the unsuspecting boater is left in the dust,

standing, recounting the sermon he's heard, staring at The Bus. The Bus where a locker is home to his belongings, where he spends his nights drinking beer and playing cards; the same Bus he

sits atop each evening to watch Sunset TV in the surrounding mountains.Staring.. at all of this, that man is now a believer. He has been saved.

52 Chapter 6: “Seneca ROCKS”

We begin by walking on a gravel road. This road will eventually lead to a smaller trail, which goes to the top of Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. However, we don't continue down this gravel road, leading to the most traveled path; that would be too easy of a hike. Instead, we take a detour. Our detour leads us to an area where I must do what I call “crab climbing”.

Crab climbing: it's not rock climbing, but it's not hiking either. It's somewhere in between, a blending of the two. The terrain we commence crossing is just steep enough and rocky enough where I need to crab climb, using all four of my limbs, resembling a crustacean more than a human. Dale, my boyfriend of a couple years, doesn't crab climb. Dale never crab climbs. He leaps upward easily, jumping, as if he were a mountain lion. Dale must have been a mountain lion in a past life - there is no other explanation.

After our upward journey has lasted for close to an hour, I begin to worry. “Dale, this is not the trail. What if we don't end up finding the trail again and then we have to climb down all this way? I can't do that. It's too steep.”

I should know better by now. With Dale, a hike is almost never on the beaten path and is almost never easy. Although this is one characteristic that originally wooed me, I am generally reluctant to take these detours. But Dale is patient with me. He is keenly aware of my two attitudes toward his ‘detours': a) I am not going that way, to which he will say okay, we won't go that way, or b) I would really like to go that way, but I'm not sure I'm capable, to which he says

(in his head) you are way more than capable and grabs hold of my hand, showing me I am able bodied (Dale is a man of thought and of action, but not of small chat). I worry and self-doubt, afraid I'll somehow fall short (or physically fall - in general, I am a fearful person), but I am always able to do as he says, and we always end up where we need to be. Dale will encourage

53 me when I think I can't and show me that in reality, yes, I can, and somewhat easily. The rewards from these small pushes are generally fruitful - and with spectacular views.

Back on the rocks, I am crab climbing and Dale is galloping. He looks down at me from above, farther up the rocky terrain than I, and says, “Brandi, stop worrying.” He says nothing else. Does he know where we are going? I don't know, I only hope.

Up, up, and up. Crab climbing away behind my mountain lion of a boyfriend. When crab climbing, I begin to know the rocks, the lichens, the mosses, and insects. These features distract me, and I forget that I am rising higher and higher in elevation. Eventually, I stop to look up and my stomach drops, possibly leaves me to run for lower ground. SHIT. I need to go back to my crab position, immediately! We are high enough and steep enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I resume my crab climbing, hugging the rocks closer than before, morphing into what looks like a starfish.

Eventually we reach a place where we can go no farther without proper climbing gear.

Together, we sit on a large rock outcropping and survey the scene. The sky is a bright blue and the surrounding mountains are so green the trees could be crayons. Sweating, I tell him, “I am not climbing the same way back down.”

Dale smiles and replies, “You don't have to.” Then, he gets up and starts heading towards a clump of rhododendron (West Virginia's state flower) that have managed to get rooted among these rocks. I follow.

After bush-whacking our way through a thick rhododendron forest, their leathery leaves and tangle of branches slapping and scratching, we emerge on a goat trail along the edge of

Seneca Rock's large face. The rock is cool to the touch and comforting. I am glad to walk parallel to the rock face and not up it. After ten or fifteen minutes, we come upon the designated

54 trail to reach the top of Seneca. Of course! I should have known. Dale is a mountain lion, but I also think he has an internal compass that functions similar to those of migratory birds. Honestly, it's amazing. How does he do it? I will never be sure, but I am always grateful for this strange ability of his. As for myself, I lose my sense of direction easily. Usually, when walking, I keep my eyes down, studying all that's beneath my feet. Then, I look up, and realize that I have no idea where I am or how I got there.

We stroll leisurely up the rest of the smoothly graded trail to the top of Seneca. Or, at least it feels leisurely compared to crab climbing up the rock for two hours. When we near the

“top”, there is a wooden overlook. Beyond that, a sign that basically pleads, “DON'T GO UP

ANY FARTHER. IT IS NOT WORTH THE RISK. PEOPLE DIE.” Naturally, Dale must climb to the actual top, past the overlook where we now stand.

At first, I refuse. Dale begins climbing up and coaxes me to do the same. “Brandi, this is easy. Especially with how cautious you are. That sign is for out of shape people who don't know what they're doing.”

“But what if I fall?” A common reply on my behalf.

“You're not going to. And I'll help you if you need it.”

“But what if you fall?”

“Neither one of us is going to fall. This scramble is easier than all we just did.”

Okay, okay, okay. I crab climb up, and yes, as Dale promised, it is easy. We are amongst tan and grey razorback rock ridges thrust up out of the earth - rotated and upended. The view from the tippy top is worth the careful scramble. We sit on one of the rock fans and admire the land. Those beautiful, mild-mannered West Virginia mountains that I love so much, green hills rolling into the distance like a sheet blowing in the wind. Some of the oldest mountains in the

55 world, wise beyond belief. Where my roots are planted deep, but my heart will never allow me to

stay.

After enjoying our time at the top - climbing around among the rocks, sitting together,

resting, talking - we begin to descend, but on the designated trail. We are both happy to use the trail because by now we are tired. Plus, we are headed to see my Uncle Jimmy, and time is of the

essence.

Seneca ROCKS. Especially when your hiking comrade is part mountain lion with

migratory bird capabilities.

56 Chapter 7: “Coyote”

I have always been fond of the animals historically hated - the vermin. Perhaps this has something to do with my contrarian nature, or maybe it's because I see so much of myself in these creatures, particularly the coyote. In the United States, we decide, culturally, which wildlife species are varmint, which ones are ‘game,' and which are respected and revered. I often wonder how animals are simply placed within a category. We like this one because it is pretty. No, we don't like that one because it eats the same animals as we do. Or even, we love that one so much, it's our favorite to kill!

The persecution of various animals for various reasons (or sometimes for no reason at all) is a rich part of the European-America's founding history. The plains bison (Bison bison) were shot from moving railroad cars for sport - for fun - and left to rot in the prairies. By the year

1900, there were only 300 bison left; fortunately, the hardy bison has slowly reclaimed part of its inherent land, although the genetic diversity of this species will most likely never recover from the bottlenecking effect of this event. The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) did not have the luxury of recuperation. Once the most numerous bird in what is now called the United

States, whose migrations turned the sky black, passenger pigeons were hunted to extinction because of the annoyance they caused and the taste of their meat.

Predators, though, have always had it the worst. In instances where predators were not hunted to the brink of extinction in the United States, they were at least driven out - or, more precisely, killed out - of much of their range. Such predators included mountain lions (Puma concolor), grizzlies (Ursus arctos), and wolves (Canis lupus) to name a few. The persecution of predators has always been an undying passion of the colonized America.

57 One species has stood the test of time. A species that has suffered the greatest amount of persecution, perhaps more than any other in North America, and yet has managed to still grow in number. This is the coyote (Canis latrans). Since Europeans settled in North America, they have wanted nothing more than to exterminate this wiley nuisance. These invaders, or settlers, tried everything: shooting, trapping, and most of all, poisoning. Strychnine caused gut-wrenching convulsions, the coyote writhed and wriggled, nervous system gone awry, before dying of asphyxiation - a painful, tortuous death, their bodies frozen solid like ice from shock. But what did their killers care? Why do the dirty work yourself when a poison will do it for you?

When Europeans first arrived in North America, coyotes were mainly confined to the western portion of the United States, mostly to the prairies. But as these newly settled peoples started moving west, the coyote, too, began to move. In spite of persecution - perpetual poisoning - and the killing of incredible numbers, somehow, these cunning coyotes began expanding their range, inching their way north, south, and east, creeping their way into cities, even. This subversive act of the coyote only strengthened the scorn.

The fierce hatred for coyotes is a kind of deep seated hate and disgust that has been passed from generation to generation of European-Americans. I cannot say that I am surprised.

These immigrants have historically loved to hate. To hate what is different, what is unlike themselves. Even more so, to hate what is similar. Author Dan Flores, who wrote Coyote

America, partially attributes this hatred to Mark Twain, who wrote disdainfully of the coyote before our developing culture knew what to think of the animal. (Again, I can't say I'm surprised. I never liked Twain much, anyway.) I think it has more to do with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of something we cannot control, fear of what we see of ourselves reflected back.

58 In more recent years, North American residents have finally come around to allowing

some predators in some cases and in some places - if they are contained within the imaginary

boundaries of National Parks, and occasionally National Forests (however, National Forests are

what we call ‘multiple use,' i.e. for preservation and extraction of resources, but extraction of

resources is what really matters most). Once they cross that line onto my property, that animal's fair game! Yet, while predators such as wolves gained public appeal, the coyote has kept its

lowly status as a pest. A study conducted by researchers at Yale University in the 1980's ranked

coyotes below rattlesnakes, rats, vultures, and even cockroaches (in my opinion, a noble crowd

to be amongst) in the eyes of the United States public. This hatred remains; it explains why in the

United States we still kill ‘round a ‘bout 500,000 coyotes each year (Wowzer!). Curiously, their

populations remain steady, and in some areas, even continue to grow.

Why is it that we have begun to mythologize certain predators - the wolf, the grizzly -

but are unwilling to place Coyote upon the same pedestal? Is it his smaller, slender figure that we

resent so much? Or his omnivorous and opportunistic nature - because the coyote is just as

willing to eat from our trash as he is to make a kill of his own? Or is it that, for once, we seem to

have been outsmarted?

Not only am I fond of Coyote (and his contumacious crowd), but I am fond of Coyote

stories the original inhabitants of the Americas have. Coyote is a character the Indigenous

peoples of America revered, respected, and learned from: He is trickster who is capable of both

good and evil, one that, from time to time, uses his superior intelligence to trick others - to

disobey the rules - in order to get what he wants. Coyote is fallible, he makes mistakes. He is

both selfish and altruistic. These characteristics, no doubt, sound familiar.

59 The Salish peoples of north-central Washington have a story, “The Spirit Chief Names the Animal People,” where no one wants to take Coyote's, or Sin-ka-lip's name- a name that means ‘Imitator,' for Coyote was very good at imitating other animals and pretending he was all­ knowing*. Although the coyote does not want to keep his own name - instead he wishes to be called a great warrior name, such as Grizzly, Salmon, or Eagle - the Spirit Chief says that

Coyote must keep his name. The Spirit Chief tells Coyote about the bad creatures inhabiting the

Earth, and that they must be stopped. He then gives Sin-ka-kip' a special, magical power: squas- tenk'. This ambiguous yet all-encompassing power is for Coyote to use when he is in need of help. I cannot refrain from thinking European immigrants were the bad creatures inhabiting the

Earth (or, rather, the Americas), and Coyote remains because of his squas-tenk'.

I believe the squas-tenk' Coyote possesses is owed to his superior and cunning intelligence, his reluctance. The coyote trusts no one but his own kind. Biology, too, contributes to his squas-tenk', which allows the coyote to produce litters recorded as high as 19 pups in order to fill their ecological niche to its carrying capacity - a self-limiting strategy. Only, the coyotes never reach their carrying capacity because humans keep killing them. So, the coyotes just keep on reproducing at an excessive rate.

At the same time, humans unknowingly strengthened Coyote's squas-tenk' - we cleared land, we forged pathways, we left around scraps (and dumb-as-doornail livestock), and we virtually eliminated the coyote's natural competitor: the wolf. You see, the wolf, not nearly as reluctant as the coyote because of their apex-predator status, was not so shy to our tricks and

Information about Coyote in Salish Peoples' storytelling and beliefs was gathered from:

Dove, Mourning. Coyote Stories, edited by Heister Dean Guie, University of Nebraska Press, 1990, Lincoln.

60 traps. And without wolves, coyotes are left with little to no system of checks and balances (and their carrying capacity is much higher, no doubt).

But I want to return to this hatred. Because, let's face it, people of long-lost European

descent living in the United States generally do not respect or revere Coyote or his squas-tenk'.

We only wish to control this varmint because power lies in numbers, and the coyote seems to be

one of the only creatures reproducing at a rate similar to our own. One of the only other species that seems to be able to adapt so well to so many varied environments. One of the only other

species that is able to successfully survive as a pack or as an individual. Perhaps we find distaste

in the audacity of Canis latrans to bear so many similarities to Homo sapiens.

But WE are the ones to decide who lives and who dies, and we have not chosen you! To this, Coyote laughs.

And WE are the only ones allowed to reproduce at alarming rates, rates that skyrocket a species well past its carrying capacity! Or, so we thought.

And aren't WE the only ones who should dominate this American landscape, from corner

to corner, with God as our witness?! And once again, Coyote laughs, because for some, he is a

God.

Me, well, I don't believe in a God. But I do believe in Coyote and his squas-tenk'.

More than once I have lain in my tent on a cool and dry Colorado night and listened to

coyotes sing. Their conversation is entrancing, yip yapping back and forth with one another, high

pitch and then low. It is clear the coyotes are doing more than making noise. They are speaking to one another, and I have always wished I had the privilege to be in on the conversation. If I

could know, could understand, I don't believe they'd have anything nice to say to me and my

kind. But I would try to communicate, to sing to the Coyote spirit, and tell him I'm on his side.

61 Chapter 8: “Jewel in the Desert”

All sixteen of us spoke excitedly about Elves Chasm beforehand, just as we enthusiastically talked about the larger rapids to come in the days ahead, with names like

Bedrock, Hermit, and Lava Falls. We were a group of ‘river rats' rafting through the Grand

Canyon section of the Colorado River, and our map read that Elves Chasm, a small side canyon and waterfall, is, “a jewel in the desert.” Naturally, we had to stop there. Elves Chasm, a must see! river visitors are told from the start by fellow rafters, books, and maps.

Our entourage of rafts - also known as a floatilla- drifted down the long stretches of

calm water between the rapids, subjected to the glaring August sun. The canyon walls, which are

as immense from the bottom as one standing at the top would imagine, did not offer much shade,

given their breadth along much of this section.

Figure 1 Rowing through some flat water in the rubber rafts.

62 During the first few days of our trip we had been continuously subjected to rain (usually

infrequent and sporadic in this area), but now the rain - and the gorgeous intermittent waterfalls

along the top of the canyon - had come to a halt and the temperature soared. We longed to take

refuge from the heat in the shade of Elves Chasm's canyon walls and to jump from the top of this

small, trickling waterfall into the cool pool of crystal clear water below. Due to recent sporadic

flash floods, the Colorado River had thus far been a muddy sludge of chocolate milk. The desert

sands of this landscape do not soak up water quickly, so during rain storms flash floods are

common. These floods come surging from distances afar via washes, old roads, canyons, and

creeks - frequently traveling tens of miles before reaching the river. By the time these rain waters reach wherever it is they're going (no doubt a sunny and unsuspecting place, far from where the rain occurred), they have collected a fair amount of sand and debris along the way.

This made the promised clean, clear water of Elves Chasm even more tantalizing. Each of us

dreamed of rinsing the silt that had accumulated on us like a layered cake, in our hair, on our

skin, making all of us lightly dusted with a rusty orange.

As we floated downriver, the sun baking the silt to my skin, I dreamed of the Elves

Chasm oasis, staring at the picture in our map. Smooth, vermillion walls contrasted against an

array of deep green mosses surrounding the small waterfall. The picture showed a woman, about

my age, with desert-wild hair, arms extended above her head in delight, jumping from a rock

above into water that glowed a deep shade of emerald. Oh yes, Elves Chasm would be a place I'd

remember forever - that was for certain.

On day six or seven (or maybe it was eight?) of our rafting trip through The Canyon

(what many rafters refer to it as - because what other canyon really matters compared to the

grandest of them all?) we reached Elves Chasm. I may not be sure of the day, but I am sure of

63 the mileage: mile 117.2 of the 225.9 miles we rowed from Lee's Ferry to the Diamond creek take-out. This distance was navigated in six eighteen-foot inflatable rafts rigged with oars and strapped with all of our gear, food, and waste. When we arrived at Elves Chasm, I happened to be rowing “The Poop Boat” - the boat that carried our dung from the past six, seven (or was it eight?) days inside ammo cans. When on a desert river trip, you cannot simply pinch a loaf on the sand behind a shrub somewhere. One: there are too many people rafting those areas throughout the year and, two: rain and moisture are scarce, causing all things to decompose at a very slow rate. You also cannot release your bowels into the river; that would just be rude.

However, you must urinate in the river - not on the land. If you urinate on the land, once again, there is no telling how much time would pass before the sporadic rains came to wash it away.

In order to solve the first of these problems, a “groover” is used. The groover is a large ammo can set up with a toilet seat on top (Back in the “old days” there was no toilet seat. You finished your business with grooves on your rear end from sitting on the ammo can, hence the name). With the best view from the john you've ever seen, you deposit your droppings into the groover, making sure to never urinate. It is important that no one tinkles into the groover because this will cause it to swell up with gases once closed and potentially explode. This second problem is solved by placing a “pee bucket” (self-explanatory) next to the groover, which is dumped into the river every morning.

One by one, these ammo cans fill up and are strapped in and rowed down the river on

The Poop Boat. By the end of our trip, The Poop Boat carried ammo cans containing the concentrated organic refuse of sixteen people from sixteen days. I rowed this shit-ship with pride.

My boyfriend, Dale, was paddling in his kayak alongside me.

64 “Do you see the eddy up ahead? Where the other boats are?” he asked me, pointing.

“Catch it early - don't miss it!”

On this massive river, the eddy lines were hard to break through, the water swirling back

in on itself, creating small whirlpools. Eddy lines this strong could suck tubes down on smaller

rafts, or even flip a kayak. Catching eddies on the Colorado River almost takes more skill than

rowing through some of the tumultuous rapids. But I wasn't going to miss Elves Chasm - I couldn't miss Elves Chasm. If I did, I'd stay caked and baked with clay, like a piece of ancient

pottery. I'd also continue to float downstream without the rest of my party, save the other two in

my boat- who would no doubt be slightly upset with me if I haphazardly passed Elves Chasm.

So, I set up early and pushed the oars hard to catch the eddy. Success often comes with sweat.

I tied up The Poop Boat alongside the other rafts in our fleet, all of them tethered to boulders or shrubs that had somehow rooted amongst the rocks. Entering Elves Chasm, I could

hear the echoes of my friends who had already reached the small waterfall. The entrance of the

chasm was a relatively narrow one. The canyon walls shot high above our heads, but seemed

small compared to the walls that had continuously towered over us for days. They were layered

like the rattle of a snake, each layer a slightly different color - ranging from deep red to orange to purple. The texture and size of each also differed from the two it was sandwiched in between.

Inside such a canyon, I longed to know more about geology. These walls told an encrypted geological story that I wished I could decipher. Walking farther into the chasm, the canyon

widened slightly, but not by much.

It was an effortless stroll between the walls of Elves Chasm, following a small, unclouded, six-inch wide stream. Upon seeing this clear water, I began moving faster toward the

65 inner chasm - the thought of rinsing the red silt and sand from my hair under the thin stream of falling water was almost electrifying.

Suddenly, we began to hear a low rumble, which quickly became louder. Is it a helicopter? Did one of the other rafting trips in the canyon have to have an evacuation? I wondered to myself.

I looked up and caught my first glimpse of the waterfall, which - heart-breakingly - was nothing like I had imagined. It was a red, sediment rich waterfall, and much larger than what I'd hoped for. I realized the rinsing of my hair with pristine, silt-less water was only a distant dream.

And wow, I began to think, that helicopter is loud! It's beginning to sound like a rapid.

Dale, my sweetheart who always manages to be so keenly aware (obviously not daydreaming of rinsing his hair), yelled, “THIS IS A FLASH FLOOD! EVERYONE CLIMB

UP!”

Before I knew it, his hands were on my bottom half and he was pushing me up the steep walls of the side canyon faster than I could climb. Everyone else in my view was also scrambling up the sides of the canyon, as a wall of thick, orangey-red, silt-rich water roared past us. I'm not actually sure if water is the proper term in this case. The water, full of sand, sediment, rocks, woody debris, and probably even a cactus or two, resembled more of a liquid red concrete (too thin to plow, too thick to drink). Elves Chasm, normally a trickle of a waterfall, which flows at maybe ten CFS (cubic feet per second), had become a raging tributary, rushing past us at around five hundred CFS.

I was dumbfounded - in shock, really - and mesmerized by the red water raging past me, boiling up in massive rooster-tail waves. I adjusted my footing on the small ledge I now occupied. The ledge was large enough for my feet to lay flat, but not so large that I didn't need to

66 hold onto a higher ledge with my hands. Looking up from the water, I noticed some of my friends had scuffled up the right side of the canyon, and others the left, where Dale and I stood.

We stared in disbelief at the new river that separated us. My friends on the other side looked like tiny fixtures, made small by the tall walls and surging river.

The severity of the situation immediately sank in and we started to count heads - there should have been fifteen of us present. Our sixteenth member, Bobber, an awesomely wild sixty­ year-old Grand Canyon veteran from Montana, was napping on his boat at the entrance to Elves

Chasm. To our rude awakening, there were only twelve of us, and the other three were nowhere to be seen. We yelled across the canyon to one another, over the roar of the flash flood, which accomplished little to nothing. Even so, we all understood the situation: three of our companions

- Brubaker, Glen, and Audra - had already been enjoying the lovely Elves Chasm waterfall when the flash flood began. I knew that had my friends been enjoying the calm pool of water, they would have probably removed their PFDs (personal flotation devices). In horror and shock, each of us started scanning the water with our eyes, searching for their bodies (See Figure 8.2).

Concerned for our friends, Dale quickly scrambled towards a massive boulder and began to set safety with another member of our crew, Timbob. They were focused on the dangerous, newly formed waterfall mid-canyon. If our friends were swimming - being flushed through the whirling water in the side canyon - this spot would no doubt be deadly. Holding on to my tiny piece of wall, I watched Dale and Timbob rig a live-bait recovery. Dale clipped a carabiner attached to a rope onto a special safety hook located on the back of his PFD. Him and Timbob then anchored that rope around a boulder. If someone were to come cascading through the waterfall, Dale would jump in and grab the individual. Timbob, still standing on the boulder, would then pull Dale and the rescued up onto the rock from which Dale was anchored.

67 Figure 2 The roaring flood separating our group in Elves Chasm. Holding onto the ledge just above my head, my arms and toes quickly began to tire.

Attempting to stay in this spot was not feasible. Ahead of me, farther into the canyon, was a bus­ sized boulder that someone else was perched upon. Slowly and cautiously, I shimmied my way over to the rock. Erica, the girlfriend of the missing Brubaker, stood on top of the rock, her tear- filled eyes scanning the water rushing past us. She looked at me and with her lip trembling said,

“He was already in the pool of water below the fall...” I put my arms around her, but said nothing, unable to conjure up a word of comfort.

68 From my new position, I had a better view of the canyon's opposite side. I watched three others, Leigh, Matt, and Corey, who had begun climbing the right sidewall to the now large, red waterfall in search of our friends. The thought of what they might find - or not find - horrified me. I don't believe in a God, but I do believe in Nature and all its forces. I found myself praying to the river itself, to the boulders, asking for the safety of my friends, a fate that had no doubt already been determined. My stomach was queasy and my hands shook. It was hard for me to imagine how Erica, sitting next to me, felt. What would be going through my mind if it was Dale that was missing?

To our astonishment, upon reaching the fall, our missing companions were found - and

(relatively) safe! However, they were trapped in the cavity behind the waterfall. Seeing as this could not be shouted across the bellow of the channeled flood, Leigh gave us the universal

‘everyone is okay' signal, tapping her head. She then smiled with a sense of relief, throwing her arms joyously into the air. Those trapped were also overcome with relief. Brubaker, Glen, and

Audra assumed that they were safe behind the flood and the rest of us had most likely been swept up and washed away into the Colorado with all of the other passing debris. Luckily, we were not, and although our friends were stuck, at least they were safe. But for how long would they be stuck? In a few hours' time it would be dark, and we still needed to row to camp. That is, if our boats were still safely tied at the entrance to the chasm, and not washed away, barreling downstream with the flashflood waters.

Corey had a genius idea: his climbing gear. Corey is a ripped, agile, ninja-like man and he climbed the vertical walls of the chasm like a spider toward our tied up boats. Within fifteen minutes he returned and with good news: the boats were safe. He'd retrieved his climbing gear

69 and good luck from Bobber, who had awoken amidst the flooding of the canyon entrance and

prepared to rescue any floater-bys.

Over the next thirty or so minutes, Corey, Matt, and Leigh rigged up a system of clips,

carabiners, and ropes so that our friends behind the waterfall could be pulled up to freedom. Or,

at least, this is what the system looked like to me - an inexperienced climber squinting from

across the flood. All of us on the left side of the canyon watched, unable to cross the tempestuous waters to help.

Eventually, directly in front of the fall - the chasm's widest point - the water had

lowered to about ankle deep, before being constricted by the tapering canyon walls into a still

raging river. Here, in the shallower waters, safety was set with another rope and a row of people.

We were ready to begin the rescue.

One by one, our friends were pulled up and no longer stuck behind the fall. Glen and

Audra kissed passionately, like the romantic duet they are, now free from the fall and in the

comfort of friends (See Figure 8.3). Brubaker and his girlfriend Erica, finally reunited, fervently

embraced one another as well (have you ever thought your other half was swept away by a flash

flood?). Thinking, again, about if it had been Dale that was missing - and no doubt him

imagining if it was me - we, too, embraced.

“How did you know it was a flash flood so fast?” I asked him.

“The rumble. And then I saw the red water come rushing. It didn't look anything like my

last visit to Elves Chasm.” Dale had kayaked the Grand Canyon once before and seen Elves

Chasm in its normal state of order.

All members of our party managed to shimmy their way across the chasm's walls to

reach the slowly dying waterfall. We stood there together, embracing, celebrating, as the water

70 rushed past our ankles. Everyone seemed to be laughing, feeling exhilarated, no doubt from the adrenaline surging through us.

Figure 3 Finally free, Glen and Audra rejoice and kiss as the waterfall behind them begins to taper off.

“We thought you guys washed away!” Someone said to Glen, Audra, and Brubaker.

“We were safe behind the water and thought you guys washed away!” Audra said back.

During that moment, we were all thinking the same thing but not quite ready to say it: we couldn't believe none of us had washed away. One of us easily could have washed away.

At last, the water became low enough in the canyon for us to leave. We helped one another climb down the vertical walls, maneuvering through the side canyon, and walked back to

71 the boats in the ankle deep, orange water. Our Elves Chasm outing had lasted around three hours.

Worn out, we untied our boats and began rowing the three miles to our intended campsite,

“hundred and twenty mile camp.” Compared to some of the other campsite names where we had previously stayed, such as “Hot Na Na,” “Nautiloid,” and “Unkar Creek,” this one sounded rather bland.

The name was a deception. Mercifully, we discovered it to be an immense, beauteous sandy beach. Past the sand, walking downriver, the shore was filled with large, smooth stones and harbored small alcoves perfect for bathing. As always, the canyon walls towered above, now glowing a pale purple as the sun had already crept behind them. In short, a paradise. We agreed to camp there for a couple of days, being that we were exhausted from our visit to one of the desert's most prized jewels.

That night, while we huddled together in darkness around an imaginary campfire (during the summer, all trips through the Grand Canyon must haul in all of their own firewood, so campfires are rare), we talked only of the flash flood. Laughing, yelling, still in disbelief of what we experienced: The Elves Chasm Event (as it will be called in the history books).

After our episode at Elves Chasm (this was the first, but this most definitely was not the last of our head-on flash flood encounters), I had even more admiration for the Grand Canyon and every single little side canyon we floated passed. Our flash flood experience was Canyon

Geology 101, really. How many flash floods does it take to cut a side canyon the size of Elves

Chasm, like a hot knife cuts butter? How often was that side canyon bombarded with tempestuous waters (I assumed not often, considering the recommendation it is given in every

Grand Canyon river map)? I pondered that last drop of water, somewhere (and where, precisely?!), that brought the flood surging to us. I thought of the stunning, forceful Colorado

72 River eroding the layers of rock - limestone, sandstone, shale, volcanic matter, granite - deeper

and deeper to create this unimaginably grand canyon. For me, each and every canyon had

become a jewel in the desert. Each and every canyon shaped ever so lovely by water, the greatest jewel when in the desert.

73 Chapter 9: “Oldest Mountains”

Today I was a raft guide. The Upper New River in beautiful West-By-God-Virginia.

Mostly flat water with ripples and rocks here and there, ending with two class III rapids. An easy

section of river. Today, I had the pleasure of rowing.

It felt great to row again, as it had been a year since I rowed down a stretch of river.

Initially, it burned. But once I worked through the burn it felt glorious. Satisfying.

The first of the class III rapids on this section is called “Surprise,” because if you follow the beautiful glass tongue down the center of the rapid, you are tricked by the water, and end up

running the “meat” of the rapid. In this case, guess what that means? Surprise! You're probably

going for a swim. Also, your boat may be upside down. Luckily, I managed to row the boat

slightly to the left center of the hole. This is lucky because what I did not manage to do was

straighten the boat out, and I dropped into the hole sideways. Had I been in the center, my boat

probably would have flipped. Novice mistake. I'm going to blame it on my out-of-practice

rowing arms.

Most of the trip I rowed alone, carrying our lunches, everyone else - customers and a few

other raft guides - in duckies (inflatable kayaks). I rowed ahead or behind, relaxed, and gazed at the lush, deep green mountains that rose up out of the river. Compared to mountains of the

Western U.S., they seem small. Time and erosion have softened these peaks. When I am wrapped in West Virginia's mountainous arms, I feel at ease. At home.

Why?

Why do only these mountains of Appalachia make me feel it?

74 Is it my West Virginia heritage, my family ties? My mountain blood knows it's home?Or is it a comfort drawn from something deeper? Can my body and emotional self somehow sense how old and wise these Appalachian Mountains are?

Some of the oldest there are, that's how old. Four hundred and eighty million years old, old.

*

The Appalachian Mountains once rose, higher than the Rockies, the Alps, the Andes, and many scientists believe were the first of their kind. The first, ever. On Planet Earth. And the New

River, well, contrary to its name, is even older than the mountains. Could one place monetary value on a natural history such as this? Well, industry can.

Once upon a time, this region was a swamp - near the equator - rich in plant life different from that of the present. Massive trees and ferns and muck all dying and forming a thick layer of peat. This incredibly carbon-rich peat was slowly covered by layers of sediment, accumulating little by little, year by year. Then some tectonic plate shifting. Then some tectonic plate slamming, continental uplift, and the peat became buried. Buried under lots of pressure. Peat then turns to lignite (the lowest ranking, ‘softest' coal), then with some more high pressure to sub-bituminous coal, then bituminous coal (or, soft, black coal), then anthracite (the hardest coal with the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density). This biological and geological transformation is a slow one. The conversion from peat to anthracite coal takes place over millions of years.

The coal of Appalachia is that of the bituminous type - relatively soft and containing the tarlike substance bitumen, or asphalt. Historically, this coal was mined by many men underground, in tunnels and cave-like spaces. As technology progressed, mining companies

75 realized that instead of burrowing into the mountain side, the top of the mountain could simply be scraped off.

Surface mining, which includes strip mining, open-pit mining, and mountaintop removal

mining, was a different kind of beast. In 1977, when the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act was

put into place, strip mining was permitted in Appalachia, but if and only if the land was returned,

reshaped to be “as close as possible to its original contours upon completion of operation”

(Barry, 2001). However, this act made no specific references to mountaintop removal. The result was a legal loophole through which mountaintop removal operations continued to function.

These mountaintop removal mining operations use explosives to break up the mountain's rock layers above the coal and then scrape off the tops of the oldest mountains in the world- scrape them flat. They extract the coal. They make no effort to reshape the mountain to its previous

form. What is left: a manmade dustbowl, a hidden sort of collapsed coliseum. Hard, barren edges

carved out of what was once a soft, prolific peak. Over 480 million years of geological evolution,

scraped flat in the matter of months.

Instead of “reshaping” the mountain to its “original contours,” the tops are left leveled, a white eyesore against the green slopes. The excess rock from the scrapings and explosives are usually pushed and dumped into adjacent streams, hollows, or valleys. There is no effort to

contain this casualty. The result is: the death of a stream. Ecosystems, lost. Nutrient cycling and

food webs disrupted, destroyed. Poisoned. Several West Virginia watersheds already have at least 10% of their total area affected by mountaintop removal (Palmer, 2010). The EPA has

found that more than 90% of Appalachian streams below valley fill sites (the “nice” term used

for the dumping of excess mountaintop removal materials) were affected, according to the Clean

76 Water Act's standards (Holzman, 2011). The valley fill sites appear as a giant staircase from the mountain holler below but act as a slow seepage waterfall.

How long will it be before the New River, ironically believed to be one of the oldest rivers in the world, is destroyed? Devalued? Sure, some of the river's course in West Virginia is designated as a National River under the U.S. Park Service, but the Ohio River Watershed which contains this river is huge. Of the approximate 360 miles that encompass the New River's path, only 53 of them are the New River Gorge National River section.

*

When I am alone in a boat on the New River, my mind leaves the water and floats up to the flattops - the mountaintop mines beyond my sight. Thankfully, the river always manages to bring me back. Shortly after Surprise, I was steadily approaching the second of the class III rapids: Big Bologna. Actually a very easy rapid to maneuver through, but rated so because of two river features that must be avoided: Plow Rock and Big Bologna Hole. Plow Rock (also called Pyramid rock because of its shape and size) - like any snow plow on the road, you don't want to collide with it. Running into Plow Rock would most likely result in wrapping your inflatable raft or kayak around it. To avoid this rock, you enter the rapid on river left. After passing Plow Rock, you ferry your craft over to river right. Then you straighten her (the vessel) out and head toward center-right, avoiding Big Bologna Hole and many unforgiving rocks on the left, as well as the shallower waters of the right. This sounds complex and difficult, but I promise you - it is not. We send inexperienced people out in their own personal duckies urging them to,

“Follow me! Point your boat upstream and ferry to the right!”.. .they usually make it.

Like many rapids on numerous rivers, there is a tall tale behind the name of Big Bologna

Rapid. Long ago, a raft was carrying the cooler filled with everyone's lunch: West Virginia

77 steak- known to outsiders as bologna. The large and easily avoidable hole got the best of that raft, and all the bologna sandwiches met their fate at the bottom of the river.

I went last through Big Bologna, running my boat as sweep. If any unsuspecting novice fell out of or flipped their ducky, I came in behind them, tidying up the mess. Our group passed through Big Bologna unscathed (as usual).

Back in the hypnotic flat water, my mind wandered to last summer. My bathing suit, which formed a large X on my back, soaked in the New River water, and rubbed up against my skin under my tight PFD (personal flotation device). The result was a rash. My back, marked with a big X. I scarred slightly and the X remains. That year, there was apparently an incredibly high level of zinc in the New River. What else had made its way into the water?

Part of the difficulty in predicting and studying what will be washed away into the watersheds surrounding mountaintop removal is that every coal formation is different in terms of chemical makeup (Holzman, 2011). Some have high selenium, some don't. Some have high arsenic content, some don't. Manganese. Lead. Iron. Hydrogen sulfide. If it's on the periodic table, there's a chance of it being in a coal deposit. Whatever is found in the coal deposit mined by mountaintop removal inevitably makes its way into the water (Holzman, 2011).

*

Although mountaintop removal is now the dominant driving factor of land-use change in the central Appalachian region of the U.S., somehow, the unemployment rate of coal country doesn't reflect this (Palmer, 2010; Woods & Gordon, 2011). The miners complain:

Bring back coal! They plead to the politicians.

Friends of Coal reads a sticker on the back of a rusty pickup truck.

“Clean” coal, say all of the coal companies' media sources.

78 Coal keeps the lights on! Reads a sign in someone's yard.

We NEED coal.

But it's not that we no longer need the coal, it's that the coal companies no longer need the miners. The jobs of the miners have been replaced - stolen. By machines. The coal industry

has figured out how to get massive machines to do the mining, rather than thousands of men.

Mining will never be what it was back in coal country's heyday. Coal country will never be the

same; a way of life is lost. The mountains, too, will never be the same. The oldest mountains in the world.

This way of life is not necessarily a bad thing to have been lost - miners worked

dangerous jobs - it's estimated that 95,000 miners died in the U.S. between 1900 and 1950- long

hours, and were historically indebted to the company store (Mine Health and Safety

Administration, n.d.). The loss of this lifestyle could present an opportunity to the region; unfortunately, this is not yet the case.

The miner families perhaps don't see how they are being robbed by the industry. These

industries are not bringing life, but death, into their towns. Residents of coal mining areas,

especially in Appalachia, generally have greater socioeconomic disadvantages - a polite way of

saying they are poor (Zullig & Hendryx, 2010). Their mountains and hollers and valleys and

streams suffer greater environmental degradation. Their health suffers, either from working in the mines or pollutant runoff in the water. People die younger here (Hendryx & Ahem, 2009).

Minden, West Virginia, a town I drive through every day to reach the river, has a cancer rate

estimated by some to be that of four times the national average.

The politicians of the region claim these flat-top mountains now hold a higher value

compared to when they remained peaks, “A lot of people through the years ask why Appalachia

79 is so poor. One of the biggest reasons is we were land poor- we didn't have any place to

build...” (Loyan, 2011). Now the flattops are open for development: for subdivisions, for golf

courses, for prisons. The oldest mountains in the world - well, now they've been scraped flat.

And now they're worth something: $$$.

*

Is there some subconscious part of me (or conscious, perhaps?) that feels comfort in

knowing this is the oldest mountain range in the world? Like a wise, old grandmother who

knows best? (If only she could control her own fate.)

I looked up from the glassy water ahead and stared at the mountains that enclosed me.

They appeared wild - untouched. But there is a rich history within those hills. I know that today I

rowed past abandoned mines, old coke ovens, mining camps disintegrating back into earth. The

old ways, lost to the forest. How long will it take for the earth to reclaim the flattops that ranged just beyond my line of sight?

West Virginia, I return to you and it feels as if no time has passed - even though your

mountains have seen millions and millions and millions of years pass. Four hundred and eighty

million years. You welcome me, always, wrapping me with your grandmother-like mountains.

The place I feel most at home. Where my heart always is - beating - within and for those

mountains.

Today, here on the New River, I wept for you.

80 9.1: References

Barry, J. (2001). Mountaineers are always free? An examination of the effects of mountaintop removal in West Virginia. Women's Studies Quarterly, 29(1/2), 116-130. https://doi.org/10.1353/wvh.0.0081

Hendryx, M., & Ahern, M. M. (2009). Mortality in Appalachian coal mining regions: the value of statistical life lost. Public Health Reports, 142(4), 541-550. https://doi.org/10.1177/003335490912400411

Holzman, D. C. (2011). Mountaintop removal mining: digging into community health concerns. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(11), A476-A483. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.119-a476

Loyan, D. (2011). Signs of the times: visit the spectacular mesas of West Virginia. Appalachian Journal, 38(4), 338-354. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/41320265

Mine Health and Safety Administration, United States Department of Labor. (n.d.) Coal fatalities for 1900 through 2018. Retrieved from https://arlweb.msha.gov/stats/centurystats/coalstats.asp

Palmer, M. A., Bernhardt, E. S., Schlesinger, W. H., Eshleman, K. N., Foufoula-Georgiou, E., Hendryx, M. S.. .Whitlock, P.R. (2010). Mountaintop mining consequenses. Science, 327(5962), 148-149. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1180543

Woods, B. R., & Gordon, J. S. (2011). Mountaintop removal and job creation: exploring the relationship using spatial regression. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(4), 806-815. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2011.567947

Zullig, K. J., & Hendryx, M. (2009). A comparative analysis of health-related quality of life for residents of U.S. counties with and without coal mining. Public Health Reports, 125(4), 548-555. https://doi.org/10.1177/003335491012500410

81 Chapter 10: “Walking”

For Edward Abbey and Henry David Thoreau, who have been with me on many walks.

I am attempting to perfect the art of walking. It has been a lifelong journey of trial and

error. I walk perfectly fine, but the art of walking I have yet to master, or quite determine what

encompasses this aspect of walking. Today I am practicing with my partner, Dale, and our beloved dog, Banzai, in Granstaff Canyon, Utah. Our goal is to reach the beginning of the

canyon, where Morning Glory, a natural rock bridge of 243 feet in length, will span above our

heads and Granstaff's walls will offer us shade. There is but one way in, one way out, and a little

over five miles in between.

The sun is also here with us, beating down, following our every footstep, slow roasting

our brains. It's not so much a pounding or throbbing in the head, but a feeling that the brain is

shrinking, shriveling, like meat in a smoker. Occasionally, we are able to seek relief in the

shadows of the canyon walls or some lonely desert shrubs. In these tiny little pockets, we rest

and drink water.

While in the desert, Edward Abbey always advised one should carry water - lots of it,

avoid the noonday sun, and avoid the summer all together. Thoreau claimed that, “In the desert,

pure air and solitude compensate for want of moisture.” It's early August and sometime near the

hour of noon. I look up and see the sun resting between the canyon walls. It's so bright against the deep blue sky that it appears white, and I am blinded. I have to admit that Abbey was right.

No offense to Thoreau - he may have walked many miles, but not one was in the desert. His

assumptions about pure air and solitude have proved to be wrong on this expedition - nothing, thus far, appears to compensate for want of moisture.

82 Word of mouth is that there is a lot of water along this hike - at least that's what our friends said. Liars, I think, all of them. All I see is rock and sand and dust and sun. Some cacti too, and dried, shriveled grasses, but no water. We brought five liters with us (two per person, one per dog), which is about enough to avoid the parched death of many other desert wanderers.

Back east, in Appalachia, when I needed to cool off, I would touch large rocks, or the ground, sometimes lying on them, and allow my skin to cool. This red sandstone here is so hot that I think if I laid on it I might begin to sizzle like bacon on a griddle.

I take my shirt off and continue in my sports bra - the shirt wasn't doing me any good.

Any sweat my body creates immediately evaporates in this heat, leaving behind my salts, caked to my shirt, so the shirt does nothing but suffocate. I raise my head from staring at my feet and look at Dale, who did the same thirty minutes ago. He always gets the good ideas first. Dale walks slightly ahead of me, each of us in our own world.

As Abbey wrote, “If God had meant us to walk, he would have kept us down on all fours, with well-padded paws,” much like my furry companion Banzai, daintily trotting in front of me.

He most definitely walks with more ease, speed, and agility than we do. Or, if we humans were meant to travel long distances, would we not have evolved into a wheel-like shape, rather than having to invent it ourselves? I contemplate these curiosities and stare down at my legs as they carry me over dusty, rust-colored rock. I remember how baffled Thoreau was by those in professions which required sitting, “as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not stand or walk upon- I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.” A bit harsh, maybe. However, upon closer inspection, I notice my own legs don't seem like they were made to sit upon. My legs seem more fit for walking. Which I guess means I must continue.

83 The canyon, whose smooth coral walls began with a wide, open mouth, has slowly become more narrow. Somehow, with the narrowing of the canyon, the sun also seems to have narrowed further in on us. I look up at my glowing halo and it intensely returns the stare. I switch back to looking at my feet instead, watching each step over slickrock, then sand, then more slickrock. With every step, every breath, I feel precious moisture exit my body and instantly evaporate into the air. I try to remind myself of how much I love walking on a blue sky, sunny day in the company of my best friends.

Really, I'm more of a saunter-er than a walker. I don't move quickly - especially compared to Dale. He hates marathons but always seems to be participating in a solo one. From

Thoreau, I know that sauntering has two potential roots. In the Middle Ages a Sainte-Terrer was someone in search of à la Sainte Terre, or the ‘Holy Land' - wherever or whatever that may be.

However, Thoreau seemed to lean more toward the second derivative, sans terre. For him, this meant that a saunterer was, “without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere.” These types of people make the best saunterers, he thought: “For this is the secret of successful sauntering.” I think I might be one of those people.

Although, for me, sauntering may be a little bit of both. I have no home per se, and home is wherever I am in that moment. I saunter my life away, wandering from place to place. But in the end, I think I might be searching for my own a la Sainte Terre. I'm not looking for a god, no.

Just a place that I might saunter my way into one day and think: this is it. My only problem is that each time I reach an a la Sainte Terre I think about how there may be a better, more enticing

Holy Land somewhere else. A kind of never ending crusade.

84 However, today I'm beginning to think this walk definitely isn't leading me to any Holy

Land. In fact, if I am to judge based solely on exterior conditions, I might think I'm headed toward hell. I am engulfed by orangey-red walls that are beginning to look more like fiery flames. It's so hot, I'm starting to see mirages. The kind that glitter in the distance, reflecting sunlight.

Alas! - It is no mirage, but a creek! A comely creek with water so cold it hurts. Banzai,

Dale, and I walk straight out to the middle of this creek, standing with our ankles in the water.

Banzai laps some up. Dale sits down to submerge as much of his body as possible. I splash some water all over myself to cool my skin.

“How is this water so cold? It's like a hundred and fifteen degrees outside right now.”

This is not an exaggeration.

Dale doesn't offer up any answers. Neither does Banzai. The desert is a mysterious place.

Once we are sufficiently cooled, we part ways with the creek, but not by much. The trail is now running parallel to this savior. In the desert, small creeks like this completely change the immediate habitat. We are no longer traversing barren slickrock, but are beneath the shade of trees, bushwhacking our way through grasses and shrubs that cling to this creek for dear life. The grasses brush up against my calves, much softer than the cacti I've been avoiding along the trail.

Suddenly, the canyon widens again and our path leads us away from the water's edge.

Parting is such sweet sorrow. Behind us, with the creek, is also all that shade. I look back up to the sun, once again, boastfully shining down. At least I can think of today as an excellent opportunity to store up some vitamin D. One has to remember to look at the bright side.

“How much farther until the shade, the Morning Glory Bridge, you think?”

85 Dale stops to turn and look back at me. He waits for me to reach him and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Tough sayin' not knowin'.” This is the response Dale gives in reply to many questions I ask.

I can also be thankful that I am not walking uphill. How unnatural of a thing, to attempt to fight gravity - “not only unnatural but so unnecessary,” sneers old Cactus Ed. Why then, I wonder, do I - much like Abbey and Thoreau once did - always feel such a gravitational pull to walk up mountains, molehills, cliffs, and crags? I always think it's such a great idea, and then there I am, fighting gravity, walking uphill, complaining about it the entire way. This was your idea! Dale reminds me every time. Once at the top, I forget my struggle, every complaint I uttered, and marvel at the vista view, commenting on what a great hike it is. Dale then looks at me strangely, no doubt questioning my sudden change of heart. When back at the bottom, I am always pointing to some other piece of land, rising up out of the ground, suggesting we walk up that too. Selective memory, I guess. At both the top and bottom, I selectively remember the picnic at the peak with a grade-A view. Only on the way up do I remember previous struggles.

Something jogs my memory and I think: why do I do this to myself? Secretly, I know the answer.

I think it might be part of my crusade, the never ending search for my own à la Sainte Terre.

How could I possibly know I've found my Holy Land if I haven't truly experienced the place and physically suffered along the way? Thus, the physical strain, pain, and suffering continues.

Thoreau believed this type of lifestyle, these types of walks, “in the sun and the wind, will no doubt produce a roughness of character,- will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature...” I can verify the truth in this statement. I look at my hands and arms. They appear to be morphing into leather with each moment beneath the sun's singeing rays.

86 Just as I'm about to collapse and tell my companions to go on - you're better off without me - we meet back up with the creek, which has formed a large pool of water, due to a natural

dam-like narrowing of the stream somewhere unseen to us. I step into the translucent water and

look at the rust colored rock beneath my feet. I submerge myself and wonder whether or not such temperature extremes could put my body into shock. Dale joins me, swimming to the middle of the pool. We float on our backs, staring at the stunted cottonwood trees and willows that have taken to this small oasis. Then, I latch onto Dale's back and ask him to swim around the pool,

pulling me behind him. He entertains my request under one condition: he's next. Banzai stays at the shore, stepping in and out, pacing back and forth, staring at us. He can't stand that we're

having fun without him, but he also doesn't want to have to swim. He prefers to stand or lay in

shallow water. We attempt to coax Banzai into the water, but he does not entertain our requests.

#

The rest of our hike into the depths of this canyon follows much of the same pattern: just when I think I may die of a heat stroke like all the other ill-prepared assholes who wander through the desert on hot summer day, we re-converge with water. After a few hours of this

pattern, we come to a place where the canyon narrows more than it has before, and eventually the walls merge. The end of the trail. The beginning of the canyon. The halfway point on our walk.

The area is cool in temperature and heavily shaded. Morning Glory natural rock bridge

spans above our heads from one side of the canyon to the other. The bridge is stained with

smears of black, tracing the lines where water glides when it rains. A small trickle of water

comes from a crack in the tall walls, and water is collected in small impressions scattering the

floor of the canyon. Banzai lays flat on his side in one of them. Dale and I sit on the ground and

87 chew some jerky. The cathedral-like space is quiet and our sounds echo, as if bouncing off stained glass.

I speak softly. “Do you think that whole creek comes from the little trickle of water?”

Once again, Dale has no definitive answer. Neither does Banzai. Just another one of those desert mysteries.

“I think this is one of my favorite walks we've ever taken.”

Dale looks at me strangely, but then smiles. “You sure did seem to suffer a lot for this to be a favorite.”

I agree with his statement. It appears to confirm a pattern I follow. I think about something else Ed Abbey wrote, a good thing he had to say about walking: it “takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life.” Today's walk may or may not have prolonged my life. But it did stretch time, or at least allow me to move at the same pace as time, instead of speeding through. In some ways, I almost wish I had crawled through this canyon - stretched time out even longer. Yes, this form of locomotion may have increased my physical suffering - my legs, especially my knees, would most likely be rubbed raw and I would probably be riddled with cactus needles - but sometimes a person needs more time. More time to truly understand a particular place and exactly what it is they're moving toward. Doesn't all art require, at the very least, a small amount of suffering to be worthwhile? To fully comprehend the beauty, the fleeting moment, the sublimity of it all, a little pain is necessary.

After hanging out for a while, our skin cools and we begin to get goosebumps. Banzai leaves the pool of water, shaking off his fur. It's time to finish our journey, to circle back. Which reminds me of wheels, and how thankful I am to have legs instead, so that I can take my time and

88 enjoy my saunter back. Which reminds me that soon enough we'll reach our set of wheels, the car. And I know you can't rightly see anything up close from the window of a car. And what you can see is just that - vision. You don't get to touch or smell or hear or taste the environment.

With only a visual connection to a landscape, a person can't truly comprehend it, learn it, physically suffer from it. Abbey agrees, “Walking makes the world much bigger and therefore more interesting.” In my opinion, cars take the fun out of locomotion, yes, and most definitely shrink the world.

It crosses my mind that the only good kind of walk is the one which causes physical suffering. Gritty sand in your teeth. Scraped knees. Profuse sweating that sucks every last drop of water from you. Sore calves. That maybe these pains are what bring perfection and fulfillment to the art of walking. Perhaps I am still delirious from the earlier heat and am trying to make the best of it, or maybe it's because I'm at the top.

“Which canyon should we hike next?”

89 Chapter 11: “Keylime and Cooter Row Backwards”

KEYLIME* AND COOTER* ROW BACKWARDS *The nicknames of these individuals have been used to protect their identities.

We didn't intentionally get lost at sea. Perhaps Cooter and I simply didn't prepare or plan well enough, but it can be hard to know what to expect with some situations. Especially when you decide to row a nine-foot long inflatable rubber raft around an island.

In January of 2015, I found myself on North Captiva Island off the coast of Florida in the company of one of my closest female friends, Cooter, and a small group of others (all of whom

happened to be men). Our connection was via work - we all worked at a local pizza joint in the

small town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. The wonderful owner of this pizza place saves the gracious customer tips from to-go orders all year long. Then, each year in January, he uses those tips to fund a week long beach vacation for any and all employees who would like to go. In

hindsight, he's probably the best boss I have ever had or will ever have?

For various reasons, none of the other female employees wanted to embark on the journey with me and Cooter. Some of the women had very legitimate reasons, like having given birth to a child six months prior. The rest had silly excuses about boyfriends. This was not the

case for Keylime (me) and Cooter. We are as free as the wind. Perhaps, in this case, as free is the

ocean is better suited. Yes, we both have men that we love very much, but in our eyes and theirs, you can't say no to a free week long vacation on an island. All we had to do was get ourselves there and transport all the booze we needed.

I'd only been working at this establishment for a little over a month when it came time for the beach vacation - I didn't expect to be invited. However, my girl Cooter, who had been working there for almost a year, not only convinced the owner he needed to hire me, but that I also definitely needed to join the vacation.

90 Cooter and I both have an affinity for rivers, or bodies of water in general, especially when in some type of water craft. This is how we met - our first interaction was an eighteen-day

river trip down the Colorado River. Because this is our nature, and we were heading to a piece of land surrounded by water, we decided to bring Cooter's small, bright blue inflatable rubber raft,

along with the frame and oars.

And so it was - Cooter and I kissed our boyfriends goodbye (for the week), packed our belongings and booze into my car and drove south. Originally, we believed the twelve-hour drive would be the arduous part of our journey.

*

North Captiva Island is located off the west coast of Southern Florida in the Gulf of

Mexico. The island was once part of Captiva Island until a hurricane blew through and created a

channel, now called Redfish Pass. Captiva Island is bigger and has more “common luxuries” than North Captiva, such as grocery and liquor stores. Therefore, when traveling to North

Captiva, you must bring all necessary provisions.

Both Captiva and North Captiva are barrier islands to Pine Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

In order to reach either, you first drive to Pine Island from the Florida mainland (a bridge aids with this process) and then take a ferry to either island. The ferry from Pine Island to North

Captiva is seven miles. North Captiva is well worth the journey though - the island has no paved

roads, no cars are allowed (golf carts only), and the entire southern portion of the island is untouched, left as a wildlife preserve.

Before arriving on Pine Island, Cooter and I had planned to ferry ourselves the seven

miles from Pine Island to North Captiva in the nine-foot rubber oar raft. Each of us had a fair

91 amount of rowing experience and had rowed more than double seven miles per day, numerous times.

When we arrived at the dock, Cooter and I stared out into the incredible vastness of the ocean and stared at a mirage-like looking island in the distance that was (maybe?) North Captiva.

The seven miles now seemed more daunting.

I looked at Cooter. Wisps of her light brown hair whipped out from beneath her hat as she stared toward the direction of North Captiva. “Are you still thinking you want to row there?”

I could tell Cooter was squinting behind her aviator sunglasses, trying to make out the island in the distance. She looked at me, “I think we could do it, but it'll probably take us the rest of the day.”

I nodded, “Yeah, it would take a lot longer than we imagined. But that ferry looks like a lot of fun.”

So, Cooter and I hopped on the ferry, canned margaritasi in hand, and rode the seven miles to North Captiva with wind in our hair. We told ourselves we were capable of rowing from island to island, only we'd rather relax on our first day, after having travelled all that distance.

Could we have done it? In retrospect, looking at events that later passed, no, probably not. Most definitely not. Like a river, the ocean will take you where it pleases, despite your rowing efforts, from time to time. Unlike a river, the ocean can take you much farther, and in many more directions, sometimes without you even noticing.

*

Being that we were the only ladies on the trip, Cooter and I had a room in the luxurious rental home all to ourselves. The queen bed had giant plush pillows that swallowed us as we

ǂ The best way to enjoy one of these beverages is to open the can, reach the can over the edge of the watercraft you're on, turn the can upside down, and watch the contents of the can fall into the body of water. And then consume an actual margarita, or beer, or anything else, for that matter.

92 giggled through the night - as if our twelve-hour car ride was not enough time to get this out of our system.

“Okay, Okay,” Cooter said, “if you had to put one of these boys in the raft, wish them luck, and shove them out to sea, who would it be?”

“Hmm.definitely C--.”

“Oh, for sure. Okay, so what if you had to be in the boat with them? Then who?”

“What about our lovely boyfriends back home?”

“It's just a what if - what if you had to choose?”

“Uhh, do you even have to ask then? Obviously it would be A--. Hands down.”

Cooter agreed. “Yeah, but I think if I then had to spend the rest of my life in the boat with that person I'd pick P--.”

I nodded in agreeance. “Good choice. P--'d be a good companion.”

After determining who we would abandon and who we wouldn't mind some alone time with in the boat, we discussed our own plans for a boat voyage - either rowing around North

Captiva, or to Captiva Island, the next day. While we agreed on boys, we disagreed on plans.

Cooter had never taken a non-motorized boat in the ocean, whereas several years back I had done a canoe trip hugging the coastal tip of Florida. I tried to stress - especially after seeing the open ocean from island to island earlier - that we should stick close to shore, rather than row from island to island. The ocean is big, really big. It can also be rough and difficult to get anywhere you intend. Especially if it is windy. An upwind paddle on the ocean is in a different league than on a river.

Cooter, though, is an excellent oarswoman and did not seem to be worried, “Seven miles.

Come on, Keylime. That's nothing. I've seen you row way more than double that in a day.”

93 “Seven miles to get there. Are we rowing back?”

“Yeah, or if we're tired we'll just take the ferry back.”

Cooter has a can-do and will-do attitude. Sometimes this will get you into situations with her doing things you never thought could be done. Other times doing things you wish you never had done. Just another reason for Keylime to love Cooter.

*

The following morning was grey, overcast, and windy. Although I convinced Cooter not to row to another island, she was set on rowing around North Captiva and was going to do it with or without me. I was hesitant, but did not want her going alone, so I joined.

We chose to begin on the barrier side of the island, rowing south, swing through Redfish

Pass, and then hug the coast, rowing north in the open ocean until reaching where our house was located on the beach (See Figure 11.1). Our expectation was that, at the least, our trip would be gorgeous, since the majority of our day would encompass passing the wildlife preserve on the island's southern portion. In preparation for our journey we packed the boat with beer, a little whiskey, a canteen of some juice and vodka combination Cooter concocted, a bucket for bailing water if need be, two sandwiches, and our life jackets (just in case). Off we went in our little blue bucket boat.§

§ Bucket boats are a relic of the past in the history of river and whitewater vessels. More modern boats are called self-bailing. The floors of these newer, self-bailing rafts are inflatable (just like the rest of the raft) and have holes around the edge of the inflated section of the floor, where water passes in and out freely. The floor of a bucket boat is not inflatable, but instead only a layer of the canvas-like rubber that the raft's inflatable tubes are made out of. When water makes its way in over the edge of the tubes, it stays there at the bottom of the boat, weighing and slowing it down. For this reason, when river rafting in a bucket boat, there is a designated bailer - someone with a bucket in hand working their best to continuously empty water now at the bottom of the boat.

94 Figure 4 Original plan of execution.

Once we set off shore, all of my worries about rowing rough, choppy, oceanic water soon faded. The waters between Pine Island and North Captiva were smooth and calm, rowing was easy, and we moved with little effort. Every ten or fifteen minutes we switched off rowing, each of us warming up our arms. The boat glided past the shore, now a delicate tangle of mangroves with pneumataphores creeping up out of the water, looking like old, bent fingers. Cooter and I watched a variety of shore birds meander among the mangroves, intently scouting out their lunches. We also enjoyed the vodka cocktail that Cooter had so kindly provided.

95 About thirty minutes into the trip, I was ready to admit I had been wrong. “Cooter, I was

kind of being negative. This is not nearly as rough as I imagined. It's such a peaceful day.”

Cooter smiled wide, “Good. Keylime, I didn't want you to feel like you had to come, but

I really wanted you to come.”

Cheers to that.

“Plus,” Cooter said, “I wanted to go on our own adventure without all the boys.”

Now they would know we didn't need to look to them for fun. Perhaps, instead, they'd look to us.

*

As we rowed farther south, approaching Redfish Pass, the water became increasingly

more shallow. Eventually so shallow that rowing did nothing but move sand. The water was only

ankle to knee deep, so I got out, Cooter handed me the bowline, and I walked, pulling the boat behind me. Although I was pulling Cooter as she sat in her floating throne, she was still

recovering from knee surgery, so I insisted she stay put. And me, well, I love a good leg burn.

As I trekked forward, Cooter hooted and hollered, “Damn girl! Look at you pulling! This

is pretty nice...hey, catch!” She threw me a beer. Boat in one hand, beer in the other, I continued

pulling at a leisurely pace. We were in no hurry and time was moving slow. The water was warm

and the fine white sand spread between my toes with each step.

“Are you and Dale ever going to have kids?” Cooter asked me.

I stopped pulling for a moment and looked back. “I don't know.maybe... ..not anytime

soon. Are you guys?”

“Sometimes I just wanna pop one out right now. But I go back and forth.”

“Right now? You never told me that!”

96 “Well we're not going to. But I don't know. I'll be thirty next year. My biology's kicking in.”

“Me too, but you've got to resist the urge. You can't just pop out a baby. I mean, you can, but.. .it's kind of a big decision.”

Cooter was also interested in resuming an ongoing conversational debate we'd been engaging in for several months, asking, once again, why did I so firmly believe that white people could never and will never be able to properly sing the blues (Joe Crocker excluded)?

I gave her the same answer I always do. “Because white people just don't have soul.”

“White people don't have souls? You and I, no souls?”

“No...I mean, I don't know if anyone has a soul. Maybe they have souls, but not soul.”

The boat became slightly beached on a sand bar.

“Ahoy! Dry land!” I shouted in my best pirate voice.

Cooter got out of the boat and we stared all around us, absorbing our surroundings. The water was clear with a glassy surface. Driftwood rested on white sand bars scattered about, their reflections bounced back on the water, and numerous species of shore birds were everywhere, seemingly unbothered by our presence. South of us, in the direction we were headed, hundreds upon hundreds of shore birds, big and small, were wading, looking for lunch, running around on the sand bars, or perched on the driftwood. Together, we stood there momentarily, without speaking, only admiring.

The two of us trudged around the shallow waters, looking for interesting marine life, attempting to approach birds, taking pictures, inspecting driftwood, lounging on the boat, and

97 working our way through cheap beer (a various assortment of Yueingling, Budweiser, PBR and

Busch **).

As the sun rose to high noon, the grey clouds began to dissipate and the day heated up. I grabbed the rope and began pulling southward again, “Hop in or I'm leaving you!”

“You wouldn't.” Cooter jumped in and I smiled back at her.

Pulling became more difficult as sand particles began to outnumber water molecules. The boat was once again beached. Cooter and I were starting to think that Redfish Pass was non­ existent and North Captiva and Captiva were, in fact, still one island.

Cooter had a bright idea: carry the boat across. The most southern tip of North Captiva is very thin, a width of maybe a couple hundred feet (see Figure 11.1 again for reference), and could easily be crossed.

“That sounds more feasible than dragging it around. How's your knee?”

“I'm good. We got this.”

Once we found a relatively open clearing in the island's shrubby plant life, we removed the oars, carrying them first and then the boat, all with relative ease. Part two of the journey had now begun: open ocean. Distance wise, Cooter and I were halfway through our journey, and had thus far only spent slightly over an hour of time actually rowing. Time was on our side. We looked out into the vastness - all we could see was open ocean until the horizon lined curved away in the distance. Off we went in our little rubber raft, into the Gulf of Mexico.

It did not take but one minute of rowing in the open ocean for us to realize this side of the island was going to be a different experience. Wind blew our hair around and lapped salt water up against the boat. Where we began, on the barrier side of the island, rowing had been almost

Yuck. I know, Busch is disgusting. But sometimes you take what you can get.

98 effortless. The two of us then assumed this would be true for our entire trip. We were severely wrong.

“Okay, game plan,” said Cooter. “Let's row hard and stay close to shore.”

“And crack open that whiskey, too!”

The whiskey part of the plan worked out well. The rowing, though, not so much. Cooter and I each rowed hard, but very little distance was being made despite our efforts. The southward wind, although light, was enough to work against us and chopped up the water's surface. At the rate we were now moving, hugging the shore would get us back to the house in in about six hours, which would be after dark. Neither of us liked the thought of still being out to sea in a tiny speck of a vessel come nighttime.

“I think we should cut across this curve in a straight line to make better time,” Cooter suggested, pointing in the direction of the cut.

I pondered the idea, feeling a bit nervous about going so far out from shore. “I'm just worried the current will take us way out, farther than we want to be.”

Cooter thought about this for a moment, rowing all the while. “Well, then let's keep an eye on that. If we're getting pulled out, we'll row back hard to shore and go from there.”

A compromise was made. By this point, all of the delicious beverages we had been drinking were making their way to our bladders. Normally, when I'm in a boat on the river, I plop right into the water and let it flow. This was not quite the same. The ocean is so much larger

and is home to so many more mysterious creatures''. We were also now in deeper, darker water,

and I could no longer see the ocean's bottom. So, I hung off the edge of the boat, facing inwards,

Mainly sharks were on my paranoid mind.

99 holding our bowline, feet planted on the edge of the raft's tubeκ, and tried to go. Cooter was

rowing hard, sweating. I swear I was working just as hard to relieve myself, but it wasn't

happening for me.

“What are you doing over there?”

“I'm trying to pee, but it just won't. I can't. Stage fright?”

“Stage fright? I've seen you pee so many times.on.. the river, in the woods, in the bathroom.”

“I don't know, maybe it's an awkward position.” I momentarily gave up. It was my turn to row anyhow.

We swapped places. Keylime rowing and Cooter hanging off the edge of the boat, trying to take a piss. Cooter had a different technique, though. She held onto one of the straps around the boat, feet on the edge of the raft tube, only facing outwards - and there came a golden

stream.

“Oh my god - look at it! The distance! It's flying out!” I was amused. Too much so,

laughing so hard that I had abandoned my duties as an oarswoman. Cooter pulled up her shorts

and fell into the boat, laughing. Laughing at what - her golden stream, my piss poor performance,

I'm not sure. But we could not stop - Cooter and I were drunk, soon to be lost at sea, and

laughing almost uncontrollably.

“Shit! Look at us. I'm a horrible oarswoman. Have we gone anywhere since I started

rowing?”

Cooter looked at me, then squinted at the shore, pale sand glittering in the sun. “I think we might be going backwards. What the hell are you doing over there?” More laughter ensued.

ǂǂ Heaven forbid my feet become shark bait. or food for some other, undiscovered creature lurking in the dark depths.

100 But the observation was just. It appeared as if we had somehow backtracked. Oh, I'll tell you

how: the ocean. Unlike a river, whose current is always visible and clear, the ocean can appear as

stagnant, when in fact it is moving, slowly, steadily.

Focus was necessary. Whoever was rowing could not stop - not even for a few seconds - because the current was taking us back south, and we needed to go north. Cooter hopped back on the oars, we cracked two more beers, and I went for another try off the edge of the boat. Cooter's

method was also unsuccessful for me, so I resumed mine. Still, nothing.

“Finish your beer. It's gotta eventually work its way out, right?”

I pulled myself back into the raft, but kept my bathing suit bottom at my ankles. I wanted

as little as possible between me and my moment of relief whenever it was going to happen.

Cooter mentioned that I looked ridiculous. I wasn't too much concerned. I chugged some water,

agreeing that if I overfilled my bladder, it would have no choice but to empty itself, no matter

how awkward the position or great the stage fright. Another beer came next.

During round four of hanging off the edge of the boat (and with my bottoms off

completely) everything aligned just right and peace came to me.

“I'm peeing!”

“Yeah, a lot. Come give me a break when you're finished. After you put your pants back

on.”

I got back on the oars and rowed. I was rowing, rowing, rowing, but we were not going,

going, going. Once again, it seemed as if we were actually going a tad bit back south. And

perhaps slightly westward, toward the dark oceanic void. The palm trees on North Captiva's

shore now looked like tiny shrubs. Instead of taking this seriously, Cooter and I were cracking up, laughing at the hilariousness - the futility - of our efforts.

101 Cooter yelled, in her over exaggerated Tennessean twang, “KEYLIME! We goin' backwards! Watchu doin'?!”

“Cooter, I don't know! I'm rowin' and we ain't goin'!” I replied in my best West

Virginia hillbilly holler.§§ The laughter continued. But, honestly (and unfortunately), we really were going backwards. I began to get frustrated with myself, staring at the distance growing between our little blue boat and the island.

“Obviously I don't know how to row anymore.”

Cooter insisted I was only in need of a break, so she took over. Slowly, very, very slowly,

she put us back on track. We needed guidance - a point of reference (me, well, I needed much

more than guidance, apparently). Cooter suggested we pick a spot on shore as a point of focus to

make sure we continued in the right direction.

Glancing back and forth between the distant shore and into the open, never-ending waterscape, I remembered a story I'd read six months prior about two teenage boys who went

out fishing in their boat off the coast of Florida. I could not remember the details of the

devastating story, only that they got lost at sea and were never found. I tried to push this thought to the back of my mind.

Just then, we heard a humming in the distance.

“A boat, look, coming our way.”

Because I'm not proficient in oceanic boats, I'm going to say it was a yacht. Cooter and I watched the yacht zip through the water with exquisite ease as it approached us. There were two

or three men aboard the fancy watercraft and it was clear these men believed they were saving

§§ Cooter and I met in Colorado, far away from either state, but had both lived in Tennessee and West Virginia on separate occasions (where Cooter's and part of my family are from, respectively). Now we both lived in the middle ground of North Carolina, but were currently rowing the shores of my birth state - Florida.

102 the day for some helpless ladies. Well, were they ever wrong. Rather than coming to our rescue, they were forcing us to speak in our normal voices and act like regular people.

“You ladies need some help?” The ‘captain' (?) shouted down to us.

“No, we're doing fine, thank you though,” Cooter answered.

“Are you sure about that? What are you doing?”

“We're rowing around the island,” I informed him.

“And we're doing great! Thank you guys,” Cooter added.

“You're rowing around the island? You can't possibly do that. You'd have to be Olympic

athletes to do that! Are you two Olympic athletes?”

We snickered and yelled: Nope! Cooter elaborated, “No sir, but we've rafted the Olympic

section of the Ocoee River in Tennessee and that's about as close as we come to being Olympic

athletes.”

I wanted him to know we knew how to handle the oars (or at least Cooter did) and said,

“It's okay. We know what we're doing. Lots of rowing experience.” Cooter and I flexed our

arms, as if that would make our point be known.

The captain sighed and gestured with his hand as if he was rolling his eyes behind his

sunglasses, “Are you sure you don't need any help?”

Cooter and I looked at one another, then back up at him, nodding our heads. “Yes sir, we're sure,” Cooter told him firmly.

He was still convinced we would need to be Olympic athletes to accomplish the task of

rowing around North Captiva Island, but he left us to be, regardless. The yacht whisked away, trying not to leave too much of a wake, leaving our fate in the hands of Poseidon. In reality, he was probably calling to send a rescue team for later.

103 Now, I'm not sure if this was the case before we met the yacht, or if during our interaction we had drifted considerably, or if the wake sent us farther out, but after that yacht left our presence, Cooter and I realized we were very far from shore. Too far. Uncomfortably far.

“Shit, were we this far before?”

Cooter once again squinted at the shore. “I don't know. I don't think so.” For the first time all day, I heard an uncertainty in her voice.

“Shoulda asked those guys for a tow.”

“Might have been a good idea.”

Cooter and I smiled at each other politely, but our laughing had ceased. The two of us felt uneasy, squinting at the shore, and the yacht now only a shiny spec in the deep blue mass. It was imperative that we act quickly and work hard to get back to North Captiva's shore.

On the northern most part of the distant shore we could make out a pale pink house amongst trees and sand. I was on the oars. I faced out toward the Gulf of Mexico, sun beaming on my face from above and reflecting back from the water, and began pulling us toward that pink savior. Pulling, rather than pushing, is a much more efficient way to row with all of your strength. Although, in essence, you are going backwards, it enables you to use your entire body - arms, core, and legs - rather than only your arms.

I was breathing hard, sweating, periodically glancing back at the shore. “Are we still going fucking backwards?” Which, in this case, meant forward, farther into open ocean. I felt slightly uneasy with this lack of progress, eyes looking into the vast void. “Why can't I get the boat anywhere?”

Cooter started to coach me - while I had a fair amount of rowing experience, she had more. After all, Cooter was one of the women who taught me how to row, how to read water (at

104 least, how to read water on a river), how to finesse a boat through whitewater rapids. She began to coach me on the little details I had yet to master - the way oars go in and out of the water's surface, which parts of my body to use more than others, different ways to anchor my feet, encouraging me all the way. Finally, and I mean finally (like hours from when we started to go north), I began to row north. I made progress.

“We're getting closer!” I yelled, elated. “Olympic athletes my ass! Holy shit, though. My body. I've never rowed this hard in my life.” I breathed heavily as I spoke.

Cooter hopped back on the oars. After a few minutes of pulling, sweat dripping down her face, she said, “Keylime, I'm sorry. This was my idea - and I'm willing to admit it wasn't such a great one.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“No. This isn't fun anymore. So don't feel bad for putting down my idea yesterday.”

I scoffed at this notion. “Cooter, I am loving this! I wouldn't trade it for a day of anything- I don't care how hard we're working.”

“Really? But we're so far out.”

“Cooter, we're having a god dammed adventure.” I convinced her to let me take back over the oars. After all, she did put forth extra effort and time to make up for when I was bringing us backwards.

We had two goals: (1) get back to shore. (2) Make it to the pink house (which was where our original direct cut away from shore would have eventually helped us reach). I rowed and rowed. Although I was still orienting myself backwards in order to pull, we were not moving backwards, but forward - toward our goal. The pink house became closer.

“Oh my gawd, I can't wait to stretch my legs.”

105 “Hey Keylime, let's have a pink house party. Beer and cigarettes and dry land!”

Agreed. No cigarette for me though, because I quit that habit long ago. However, I was willing to drink a Busch beer in honor of our arrival, which was all we had left***.

“Okay, but for now, pass me that whiskey.”

I continued pulling, pulling hard. My hair plastered to my face with sweat. My arms burned. Olympic athletes... we 'll show them. By the power vested in me by whiskey (and

Cooter's you can do it! Keep going! positive encouragement) the shore was reached. We beached the boat in front of the pink house, hooting and hollering, at first collapsing on the land, kissing the sand. Cooter lit a cigarette. I did two cartwheels. Busch beers fizzed as we cracked them open. We ran around, happy and thankful to be on land and to rest our arms, because we weren't home yet.

As we ran around the beach, drunk, singing and yelling, cartwheeling, a woman in a black, conservative, one-piece swimsuit and a large brimmed white hat walked by us. She stared at us with contempt, but avoided eye contact, definitely wondering how two women like that had made it onto an island like this. Rather than asking us where the hell we came from, beached on the shore in a little blue boat, and if we had been lost out at sea for long, she quickened her walking pace and went along her way. We ignored her disdainful glances and continued praising the land beneath our feet.

Although Cooter and I were enjoying our celebration, we were not actually finished with our journey. Once again, we needed to move northward. Cooter was still worn out ††† and I was still feeling amped up - high on my Busch beer and pride - so I got back on the oars. Once

I'm not a fan of Busch beer. Really, it's the trashiest of all America's cheap beer - the Newport Cigarette of beer. Probably because she basically got us to shore with little help from me until the home stretch.

106 again, we shoved off the shore, back into the Gulf of Mexico. This time, however, we vowed to

stay close to shore. Thankfully, my rowing was still bringing us in the direction we needed -

forward, northward, into the future.

“Damn, Keylime. You're moving us faster than that yacht now.” It did seem as if we were coasting, compared to the previous several hours on this side of North Captiva.

*

Much time had passed since we left in the morning and the sun was now lower in the sky, turning the ocean into a blinding reflective mass of pinks, yellows, and oranges. Once Cooter

gave me a rest, I noticed a few missed calls and some messages from one of the boys. Surprised that my phone was even working, I decided to be courteous and return the call. I didn't want them to worry too much.

“Sam,” I said, “We're lost at sea. The ocean has taken us. Farewell.”

“What?!” he replied.

“I'm joking We'll be back sometime. Hopefully sooner than later.”

I realized the phone was now disconnected due to spotty signal. I hoped that Sam caught the second half of that message.

Cooter and I continued to row and row, switching off every so often, depleting our booze

rations, sharing the secrets of our lives, encouraging one another. In the distance, I noticed a

group of familiar handsome fellows hanging out on the beach. The end was in sight. And on the water, I saw something moving toward us. A friend had taken a stand up paddle board out to

meet us.

“Keylime and Cooter! Damn, where have you all been? We were worried about you

guys!”

107 “We've been rowing around the island. Having a ball,” I told him.

“Around the island? Y'all are crazy.”

He paddled back to the shore alongside us. Cooter and I beached the boat once more, and everyone greeted us with cheers.

“They rowed around the island!” The boys were surprised by our triumph. We informed them that we were now Olympic athlete status, according to the men we met out at sea. No big deal.

For the rest of the evening all of us hung out on the beach, drinking cold beer, watching the sun set below the sea. All the boys gathered around, asking questions, listening as Cooter and

I told stories, mainly about how the first half of the island took one hour and the second took five. And about going backwards (See Figure 11.2).

“Hey, will you guys take me on a rowing adventure tomorrow?” One of the boys asked.

Cooter and I giggled, and stuttered a bit. It was A--, the one neither of us would have minded being shoved out to sea with.

“Um, I don't know...” I told him.

Cooter smiled and looked at me. “We might just lay on the beach tomorrow.”

Keylime and Cooter both knew - in the end, they only wanted to be shoved out to sea with each other.

Neither of us felt at all like carrying the boat anywhere, so we left the little blue boat upside down on a sand dune, waiting for its next out to sea adventure®.

*

‡‡‡ Note to self and readers: If you ever decide to row a boat with a metal oar frame in the salty ocean, be sure to rinse it off with non-oceanic water upon reaching shore. That way, you will not battle rust in the future and have to be lectured by boyfriends about “responsibility.”

108 Figure 5 Intended vs. Actual Route

I probably won't ever almost get lost at sea with anyone else - or at least I hope I don't.

After the fact, I've often thought about how this trip with Cooter could have easily become a terrible and traumatic experience, or even a deadly one. Maybe this fine line is what made our

adventure so thrilling, what allowed this experience to bring a kind of closeness between us that

is uncommon. I'm not what I'd consider a people person, and I often even keep close friends at

109 arms-length, but with Cooter this was never the case. However, this trip allowed us to form a kind of bond beyond our original ease with one another.

As individuals grow and change, so do friendships. When I think of this trip, or when I think of Cooter, I don't believe that the past or the future will ever define the friendship between us. Instead, I think this sliver in time, this day is what does- lost out at sea in our little blue bucket boat.

110 Chapter 12: “Requiem for a Serpent”

I never wanted to kill a snake. So what? someone would say when I told them I'd killed

one, and felt bad about it too. Or good job, even, because rattlesnakes get little respect. But you had to! someone else said, only, did I?

Most people, I believe, wouldn't feel guilty about killing a snake, especially a venomous

one. Rattlesnakes are not appreciated or praised for their ecological role, such as controlling

rodent populations and disease, and especially no one thanks them for their convenient warning before a strike. ‘Rattlesnake Roundups' even exist - round ‘em up and slaughter ‘em by the

masses. Hundreds of rattlesnakes are inhumanely caught, sometimes even gassed out of their burrows, and then ripped apart or beheaded in front of large, excited crowds in a Roman-esque way. To many people, rattlesnakes are considered aggressive, a villainous nuisance that must be

exterminated at all costs, even if not posing a direct and immediate threat. In this respect, I don't believe I'm like most people. I would feel guilty about killing a snake, venomous or not.

But, I did kill a rattlesnake. And in this respect, maybe I'm not as different as I hope. I'd

like to think and claim that if it came down to it, I'd always spare a creature who had the inherent

right to be there, even if that critter posed a threat to me. But the fact is, what I'd like to think I would do is different than what I did do.

We may have been living in this rattlesnake's territory. It was the summer of 2016. My

husband Dale and I decided to return to Canon City, Colorado to work at the whitewater rafting

company where we'd originally met. Dale, Banzai (our dog) and I were living in our tent behind the rafting company, off a dirt road that led to nowhere, beneath a shady clump of stunted

juniper. Jagged earthen-red mountains loomed behind us, and between the clumps of juniper

111 various species of cacti were sprinkled about. The tent-life was nothing new to us, and something we often did in summers, something we genuinely looked forward to.

The rattlesnake had been frequenting the area, seen in the distance a few times by us and once by a friend with a tent set up nearby. Now, on our nightly walks down the dusty road back to the tent, we not only had to worry about cacti, but this rattler too. It comes with the Colorado

Country. Part of the wild-west lure.

Dale and I knew to be wary, on the look-out for the rattler, careful not to disturb him, since we hadn't asked permission to move into his stomping ground. This wasn't just for safety, but out of respect for the critter. Although, it wasn't so much ourselves we were worried about, but Banzai. He's a good natured, curious dog, always willing to make new friends. Only, we weren't so sure this rattler was up for being friendly.

One night, I was lying in my sleeping bag, reading in the last of the day's light when I heard Dale yowl. I thought he was trying to scare me. (He's always trying to scare me. I tell him he's going to give me a heart attack one day. He tells me he's ‘exercising' my heart so that I won't ever have a heart attack.)

“Brandi, come get Banzai!” Dale yelled. I'm not used to hearing genuine fear in Dale's voice, so I popped out of the tent, ran past the prickly cactus, toward the dirt road we walked

each morning and night. I was halted by the rattlesnake - fierce and ready to fight - tightly

coiled, his head extended high, blocking the main pathway between our tent and the road. It was

hard to gauge just how big this snake was due to him being so tightly coiled, but I could tell

some portions of his body were at least as thick as my wrist. He bore his venomous fangs and

hissed like an angry cat, threatening to strike.

112 On the other side of the rattler, Dale was standing, eyes fixated on it, holding Banzai's collar. Banzai could tell this critter wasn't up for making small chat but was, in fact, posing a threat to his family. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight as his upper lip quivered, but he did not bark, as he's not one to usually make noise. Banzai is a wild looking dog- named properly after a hyena from The Lion King since he resembles more of a hyena than a dog, except for one ear that remains floppy. If it weren't for Dale holding his collar, and that darn domesticated floppy ear, it would have looked like two predators on the cusp of a barbarous brawl. Banzai definitely thought he stood a chance- after all, this critter was a fraction of his size. However, Dale, the rattlesnake, and I knew this was not the case. Given the chance, the rattlesnake would win.

“Keep the snake there and don't lose sight of him,” I demanded, darting around the snake, grabbing Banzai by the collar, and taking him to the tent (the back way, might I add). I left Banzai in the tent, huffing and puffing, pacing back and forth, tilting his head - with that one floppy ear - as he watched me zip up the door. He was a little disappointed for having been taken away from all the action - denied the opportunity to protect his beloved parents.

When I returned to the scene, Dale was still standing there, cornering the rattlesnake (or maybe the rattlesnake was cornering him?), looking vulnerable in his Chaco sandals and shorts.

The jagged mountains in the distance glowed a pale pink in the July setting sun. The rattlesnake's brown hues glimmered in the low rays of light, fangs still bared. Your typical wild­ west show down. Their eyes were locked as the snake's piercing stare remained intently on Dale.

“What should we do?” I asked, quietly creeping back to the road, gently maneuvering through the cacti.

113 Now, you've got to understand two things about this question. The first being that I was asking Dale this question, and not the other way around, because although I was once what you call a ‘wildlife ecologist,' Dale was the more experienced in catching, handling, and dealing with wildlife. He grew up on a small farm, taking care of animals, hunting, fishing, and even trapping.

Not only did he have experience in something like trapping a beaver and turning it into both dog food and a blanket, but he'd had all kinds of animals as pets, including a raccoon and a vulture.

The man had experience when it came to anything animals. The second thing you must understand is that neither of us like to kill snakes, or anything for that matter, that isn't for a particular purpose. And truly, those venomous snakes get such a bad rap - no one tolerates or spares them.

But this rattler was getting a tad bit too aggressive too close to home. One of us mentioned that the rattlesnake was probably calling this area ‘home' before we were, although I don't remember which. I thought about a favorite author of mine who had a rattlesnake problem while living outdoors. Instead of killing the rattler, he found a bull snake - nonvenomous, friendly snakes that actively bully rattlesnakes out of their territory - and let the new snake loose around his camp. The bull snake effectively fixed both his rattlesnake and rat problem. Three years ago, when Dale and I were living in this very same place in a tent (without a dog), bull snakes were everywhere. I thought about how I hadn't seen any bull snakes lately.

Hiss! I was brought back to reality as the rattler struck again, lunging forward.

“What should we do?!” I nervously asked again. This wasn't the time for a philosophical debate, or an analysis of morality, or even a quick conversation. This snake meant business.

The two of us bickered back and forth, our voices short with tension from the snake's glare. The snake wasn't a menace, just a defender of his territory. We chose to risk living in the

114 rattlesnake's battleground. Something else looming in the back of our minds was that just one week prior, Dale had been bitten by a brown recluse and had to have his ass lanced at the doctor.

(Yes, he was bitten on the butt. So it goes when your bathroom is a bush.) The tent-life struggle

is real, my friends. But, again, it was a struggle we happily chose.

However, ultimately, we kept coming back to the same conclusion: it was fine for us to

risk getting bit by the snake, but unfair for us to force our curious dog to do so. Neither of us wanted the guilt of killing the snake, but could we live with the guilt of Banzai getting bit? The

answer was no.

“Distract him while I gather stones,” I told Dale.

After arguing about the size of stones I'd collected, Dale threw one of the larger ones at

the snake's head. A miss. The snake hissed loudly and quickly snapped his head forward. I found

it curious that the snake still remained there, coiled up and threatening to strike, despite the rocks being thrown his way.

“I need a bigger one!” Dale anxiously demanded.

Tip toeing through the cacti, I found bigger stones. “Find a boulder!”

I carried the boulder low, between my legs, over to Dale. He took it out of my hands and chucked it. With a thump! the toss was (somewhat) successful. I think our original intent was to

have the boulder land on the snake's head and body. But, instead, the rattlesnake's head was

now trapped beneath the boulder, body still thrashing - I swear I could also still hear him

hissing.

I'm sure the snake would have suffered the same, regardless of where the boulder had

landed, but with all the violent thrashing, we thought we should sever the serpent's head - put an

end to it all. So, just as gruesome as all the other snake murderers wandering the world, we used

115 smaller stones to sever the serpent's smashed head. Why we didn't think to go find one of our

many hunting or camping knives, I don't know. Maybe some part of us thought it made for a

more fair fight. If the rattlesnake could use no modern technology in his defense, neither could we.

Dale lifted up the boulder and, still, the smashed, severed head continued to hiss and bare

its fangs (How? I don't quite know...) as the four-foot long body, now a foot away, lying in the

dust, continued to flail. He placed the boulder back on top of the hissing head. I piled stones on top of the boulder, marking the spot and making a mental note: Don't ever move that boulder... I

knew, if given the chance, that dead rattlesnake would seek revenge. And rightly so.

By this point the sun had finally crept below the mountains and it was dark. With

headlamps, Dale carried the snake's still writhing body and I followed, being careful not to get

too close - just in case. We brought it to the outdoor kitchen at this commune-like rafting

company we lived behind. We placed the snake's body in an empty Pabst Blue Ribbon box and then put the box in an empty cooler. Friends were still gathered around a fire, drinking what were

presumably the last beers from the PBR box the snake was now enclosed in.

“Beware of the cooler,” we warned. “Don't put anything you'd ever like to consume in that cooler right now, okay?”

An old, grizzled, and drunk yet wise raft guide called Swindler took a drag of his

cigarette and said, “You know, rattlesnake soup is pretty good but the flesh goes foul pretty fast.”

It was now or never. I could see the torment in Dale's eyes. Waste not, want not - a rule

he strictly abides by. But it was late, we were tired, that body was still wriggling in the box, and

Banzai was no doubt wondering where we went. We said goodbye, waved goodnight, and walked back to our tent.

116 The next morning, Dale skinned the rattlesnake and pinned the skin on a wooden board to

dry. If we weren't going to eat it, at least we could have a keepsake. Let the serpent have some

kind of immortality. I carried the snake's skinless body to an anthill, in hopes the ants would

devour the flesh and I could keep the skeleton too. Upon revisiting later that evening, I saw an

animal had carried the body away before the ants could claim it. Probably a fox or a coyote.

Maybe a bird of prey. The rotting snake and his foul-smelling flesh, baked in the dry Colorado

heat, called out to the world: come and eat me, don't let my murderer keep me.

For a few days, whenever I walked past the boulder the head was still smashed beneath,

or the drying skin, I wondered whether or not we'd done the right thing. We'd gone with the

typical solution that most folks would have, but not what we should have. I'd get upset if a

person wanted to kill a cougar or a coyote they'd seen in their backyard, because isn't that what you'd expect, living in this type of place? Isn't that precisely why people decide to live on the wildland-urban interface - to escape the city life and live more closely to ‘nature' in its ‘natural'

state? Was I just like those folks I despised, killing whatever got in the way of my safe

domestication of the wild? We had chosen to live in a tent in rattlesnake country - without the

rattlesnake's permission. And when we found the rattler defending his territory in ‘our' front yard, should we have been surprised?

Dale and I also chose to kill the rattlesnake - whose ancestors had no doubt been

slithering ‘round those mountains for thousands of years before we got there - in defense of our

dog. It was a moral choice not easy to make, especially with little time to contemplate. And I

don't believe we made the right choice; although I would never have been able to forgive myself

had we let the rattlesnake live and had it returned and bitten Banzai. The truth is, sometimes

people are willing to do malicious things for loved ones.

117 After that summer, the keepsake skin hung on the wall of a cabin we moved into. I would

sometimes stare at it, thinking about what we'd done. One day I walked up to it, I'm sorry, I whispered, coaxing the scaly skin. The rattlesnake's skin did not respond, but I knew, deep

down, he had still not forgiven me.

Shortly thereafter, I came home one day to find my dog Ayla (newer to the family) could

not contain her curiosity anymore - she'd ripped the skin to shreds. Perhaps the snake had once

again called out to the world: don't let my murderer keep me.

I picked up the pieces and placed them in bag, swearing I'd sew them back together some

day. I hope his slithering spirit can now forgive me.

118 Chapter 13: “Adrift”

The moon and the sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. - Matsuo Basho, “Narrow Road to the Interior,” 1692

Elkins, West Virginia

Our tent is set up in a verdant field on my Uncle Jimmy's farm, his white barn-turned-to- house in the background. Just three days ago, Dale, Banzai, and I packed up all of our belongings and left our little house in Black Mountain, N.C. for a summer on the road, living in a tent. Our plan is to eventually finish in Fairbanks, Alaska, where we'll stay for a few years.

Knowing we were leaving the East, we drove north to West Virginia. A goodbye was needed. Like always, West Virginia welcomed us with an endless, drizzling rain and fog hanging low on the spring green mountains. Although I'll miss this place when I'm gone, I'm happy to go. the oldest mountains where The New and Gauley meet and my roots dig deep

Chautauqua, New York

We arrived at the small farm Dale grew up on and Banzai ran circles around us out of joy, excited to be back. It has been cold and dreary for our entire stay, except for yesterday. The clouds dissipated and the sun was bright in the crisp, blue sky, offering warmth. Judge Fischer came to the farm and married me and Dale in front of a big black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia). This is ironic. The first major disagreement between us was about a black locust tree. We were on a hike, somewhere in West Virginia (or maybe Tennessee?) and Dale mentioned that he loved the bark of the black locust, pointing to a tree. The bark was dark and

119 furrowed like an old, heavy brow. I firmly told him that the tree to which he was pointing was not a black locust. It was winter, and there were no leaves to help us come to a conclusion. In the end, Dale was right. Now every time we see a black locust, he points to it and asks me what kind of tree it is.

Six people were there to watch me smile, cheeks aching. Banzai also sat and watched. It looked like he, too, was smiling. After the judge left, we sat on beaver and mink fur blankets laid out in the grass and drank champagne. spring grass plush and green flowers blooming all around yellow, violet, pink, and white

When the champagne was gone, Dale climbed around in the barn and swung on a rope hanging from the ceiling, ridden with holes. I shouted at him to be careful and got chicken lice all over my legs and dress. We left the barn and went fishing in the pond.

The Badlands, South Dakota

I am in love with the Badlands. They are reminiscent of the American Southwest, with the barren orange and yellow rock that is slowly eroding. I can hear canyons of the west whispering my name because they know I am coming.

Today we awoke at 5:45am, the sun illuminating our tent, Banzai curled up in the middle.

After an oatmeal breakfast, we hiked up Saddle Pass. The pass was steep and slippery, disintegrating beneath our feet, through natural, shallow crevices of the Badlands' plant-less formations. Walking through the cracks of the Badlands is how I imagine Mars. Except with more gravity.

120 eroded buttes fade colors crumble into sand fine chalk smooth like silk

Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota

There is a scenic byway that winds through the Black Hills National Forest on the border

of South Dakota and Wyoming. Driving through we saw sheer cliff walls topped with a never

ending expanse of tall Ponderosa Pines (Pinus ponderosa). Waterfalls cascaded from the cliff tops down, forming clear mountain streams and lakes that appeared to glow. What we didn't see was any sign of walking or hiking trails. How can you begin to comprehend a landscape you

don't ever set foot into? Cars don't count - you cannot understand a landscape from the window

of your car. abandon your car if only for an hour's time - or a day. And walk.

We drove about four miles down a dirt road. When we could drive no more, we walked.

Two miles up a slight incline through dry, grassy understory, still with those Pinus ponderosa trees towering over our heads, Banzai leading the way. On the top of the hill was a Fire Lookout tower, perched all alone. A job with a view. We laid our jackets on the ground, sat on them, ate

sandwiches, and watched the clouds float above our heads.

the needles rustle Pinus ponderosa sway the air smells of sap

Devil's Tower, Wyoming

The campground here is nearly empty. Except there's this giant R.V. towing a massive trailer, which is housing two all-terrain vehicles, and accompanied by two large, shiny pickup

121 trucks. Earlier, their ATVs were roaring in my ear. Now, their R.V.'s generator is whining in the distance. Here in the darkness, I can see the glow of a television screen coming through their window, with the silhouette of a small dog perched, staring out, longingly. Would it kill them to live without electricity for one night? What's the point of camping if you're going to bring your air conditioner, television with cable satellite, flush toilets, KFC take-out, computers, ATVs, and all other owned motor vehicles with you?

At least we have an unimpeded, gorgeous view.

Oh, towering teat glowing pink in summer's eve - you deserve better.

Canon City, Colorado

Been here a few weeks now, river guiding, and my skin is darkening (despite all the sun block), my hands are like sandpaper, and my feet are cracked- I've had to superglue them back together. Still, there's nothing I'd rather do than be on the river every day, even if my mind begins to tick as my customers ask Do we finish at the same place we started? To which the answer is a firm ‘no.'

High water on the Arkansas River peaked just above 4,000 cubic feet per second today.

So much water in such a small gorge - it is raging, rushing, swirling in a tumultuous manner. All us river rats went on a play trip after work today, down the Bighorn Sheep Canyon. Banzai didn't join us this time - the water is too high. Dale and I took our 10.5' fire engine red raft, Hot

Tomale. She is a small boat for big water, which made for great fun.

Everyone eddied out near Bootlegger's Gulch, and we hiked up to the old abandoned cabin. The chinked, one room log cabin was still in fairly good condition, considering the fire it

122 survived. In this incredibly dry climate, wood can take lifetimes to decompose. I enjoyed finding the rusted tins from the bootlegger's food supply strewn about the hillside. bootlegger's cabin an old still dried up of drink burned black and rusted

Moab, Utah area

Yesterday we left Colorado and drove toward Utah. Mid-afternoon we pulled over along the Colorado River to find a shady spot where we could eat snacks and bathe. When I'm river guiding, customers always ask me what my favorite river is. I tell them I don't quite have one - but this is a lie. The Colorado is my favorite. I am grateful for this reunion.

The water is much warmer here than through the Grand Canyon, being that we are above that damned dam (Glen Canyon Dam). The air is hot. Very hot. You can almost feel the dry

August heat singeing tissues in your lungs.

Our tent is now set up along the river at Lower Drink. Last night in the twilight hours I read aloud from Barry Lopez's Desert Notes. I had trouble sleeping, lots of strange dreams, thinking of a Lopez passage. He said to stay awake all night to listen to the boulders dream. It seemed as if the boulders were dreaming so loud I could hear them through my sleep and they seeped into my dreams. the boulders dream loud soft but deep hums through the night desert melodies

This morning, Dale and I woke with the sun at 6:00am, although the sun had not yet risen above the canyon walls. We lay in the soft sand close to the shore of the Colorado, listening to the river pass by, staring up at the walls, watching them change from a pale purple to orange as

123 the sun slowly crept in. I want to remember that moment, those sounds, the wall changing colors, forever.

*

Hiked to Corona Arch, and we were, surprisingly, alone. The sun rose still higher above the walls, continuing to brighten the oranges and reds of canyon country. We lay on the exposed rock beneath the arch, still cool from the night before, and stared at the blue sky. I've decided that the sky is more blue here than other places; not the kind of robin's egg blue the sky usually is, but a blue hue of sapphire that glows with the radiance of raw turquoise rock.

*

Arches National Park was not what I anticipated. Indolent Americans in their over-sized

RVs driving on the perfectly paved roads taking photographs from their rolled up windows.

Edward Abbey would weep, as I myself almost did. Instead, we left. Dogs aren't allowed on trails in the U.S. National Parks anyways, and what good is a hike without the company of your best friend?

Instead of battling the overwhelming crowds of Arches, we hiked into Granstaff Canyon, which offered a clashing of cactus ridden, desolate, dry, red sandstone walls with the lush, green shores of a small desert creek. The canyon led to Morning Glory Bridge, a massive, overhead arch-like formation. Water came from a small crack between two giant rocks. From where though? A spring? Does the creek continue above? the canyons whisper the cacti refuse to speak desert mysteries

We are still camped along the Colorado River. In the morning, I know I'll have to bid farewell.

124 Caribou-Targhee National Forest, Idaho a winding dirt road finding solitude in space here, we are alone.

What a stark contrast from one night to the next. Two nights ago, in Utah, the temperature barely dropped below 95 degrees. I tossed and turned, sweating. The ground radiated heat that permeated through my sleep like the boulders' dreams the night before. Last night, we shivered in our tent and awoke to frost. I wonder if we have left the warmer temperatures behind us until next summer?

Big Sky, Montana

Old river friends of ours welcomed us to their cozy cabin in Big Sky, Montana. We are enjoying luxuries such as a shower and a real bed. I hadn't thought about it until last night: we haven't slept in a real bed for more than three months. I guess our sleeping mats on the ground are fine, if neither of us were pining - dreaming - for a mattress. But one night on a mattress is enough to break the spell, allow temptation to creep in.

What would a visit to old river friends be without a trip down a river? Big Sky is home to the Gallatin, so we unpacked Hot Tomale and went on an adventure. The water was low, with exposed rocks and boulders pin-balling our tiny boat around. If you could ever close your eyes and imagine what a trout's heaven might be like - the Gallatin River is it: shockingly cold, translucent water swirling over and around rocks, forming small, calm eddies every which way. dry alpine landscape jagged against the soft sky a river carves through

125 Northern Montana

Yesterday we had a late start. At dusk, we finally arrived at some tracts of National

Forest with designated camping areas, all of which were full. Where are we and who are all of these people?

Dusk turned to darkness and everywhere continued to be full. I slowed down for a deer crossing the road, but that deer had a very long tail and in fact was no deer at all.

Cougar in the night stopping to stare then vanish eyes glowing with fire

A few miles later, we pulled off a forest service road looking for a place to camp but were stopped by a metal gate. The road was closed to “Protect Grizzly Habitat.” Onward we continued for a few more miles, until finding another forest service dirt road where we settled on camping. It was 10:30pm and the darkness was not comforting. Banzai sensed my uneasiness, shadowing my every footstep, attempting to protect me. Or be protected by me. I had trouble sleeping.

Kootenay National Park of Canada

The entrance to Kootenay began with slick, sheer rock walls, wet with moisture, towering on either side of the road, rushing turquoise rivers, giant spruce, voluptuous green and yellow mosses covering every surface, and Rockies rising higher than any I'd ever seen, blanketed with layers of fog. If the desert holds all of the mysteries of the world, this place holds all of the magic. Mysteries are secrets with answers to be found. Magic has no answers.

126 We camped at McLeoud Meadows, where thick moss covered the ground, spruce forests

immediately surrounded us, and then colossal mountains surrounded those forests. Our tent was

almost directly on the Kootenay River, so we went for a hike along the bank. alpenglow mountains milky turquoise water flows spruce scatter the shores

Along the Liard River, Canada

Liard Hot Springs was boiling-lava-hot, but relaxing. Although the springs were not

crowded, the campground was. Dale, frustrated by the humming of R.V.s' generators, declared we leave. “We're not like these people” (the R.V. kind of people). He was right, so we left in

search of a dirt road. And now here we are, camping directly on the sandy banks of the large

Liard River, clouded with glacial silt, encircled only by mountains and trees. We walked around

and set the tent up in nothing but our Chaco sandals. pure, naked freedom. leaving R.V.s in the dust middle fingers up.

Soon, the mosquitos were out, heading straight for our bare skin, and being clothe-less

didn't feel as freeing.

Like always, we went for a hike along the shore of the river. The water was low, and we followed the exposed slanted and smooth grey rocks to a place where many trees were lying like beached whales.

* campfire cooking a motorcycle engine- the sound grows nearer

127 His name was Cailin, from Vancouver Island. He was finishing a two-month long motorcycle trip, exploring the Yukon Territories and Alaska. Just a-ways down the river he'd set up camp for the night, but was soon run out by two curious black bears. Did we mind if he joined us?

Together, we drank wine and sat in the sand along the river bank by the fire Dale built, watching the late arctic sunset, exchanging travel stories and places to visit. In the morning, we cooked him hot cereal and coffee before hugging and goodbyes. I find it so satisfying to unexpectedly meet such a lovely person in such a lovely place.

Teslin Lake, Canada

Fall has begun - aspen are yellowing and the evening is brisk. At a gas station in Watson

Lake, we bought some Kokanee, Canada's cheap beer of choice. The beer is actually good, much more flavorful than any cheap American beer. Banzai ran back and forth along the beach, sniffing excitedly, while Dale and I watched the sun hang low over the lake. When I started to read, Banzai came and crawled into my lap. arctic sun setting colors shine into trees' leaves summer's soft goodbye

The Canadian Alaskan Border

Tonight, for once, we cheat.

All the campsites we visited in Kluane Park and Preserve were closed due to grizzly activity. It's berry season, and the bears are being aggressive. We rented a $50 cabin at a vacant bed and breakfast on the border of the Preserve from a French-Canadian couple. The cabin doesn't appear to have been updated - or possibly slept in - since the 1970's.

128 wooden paneled walls carpet deep orange and brown hot running water

We drink wine, we shower, we watch a T.V. movie, and we sleep in a bed. This summer, we chose to live without common luxuries. Now, we have forgotten their commonplace and are reminded of their luxuriance.

Fairbanks, Alaska

Our last two nights of what you might call freedom. We arrived in Fairbanks to a cabin that's not ready and an apologetic landlord. I don't think either of us much minded having two more nights in our tent (Banzai included) before moving into a cabin where we plan on staying put for three years. So, we set our tent up once more, this time in the city of Fairbanks in a campground alongside the Chena River. We can hear cars whizzing by on four lane roads and smell their exhausts. The campground is littered with broken glass, used condoms, and crushed, rusty beer cans. The campground is also home to several people who live in tents not by choice, but out of necessity. Tonight, there seems to be a problem with a group of these tent inhabitants and the police.

Homelessness is a relative, and loaded, term. Some would say Dale, Banzai, and I have been homeless because we did not have an address, a true home, a place to put our things other than the car. I would argue not - a tent makes a fine home when it is chosen as such. Our tent has brought me the warm feeling of comfort a home brings to many. But tonight, for the first time, as

I lie here listening to people argue and cars clunking by, in a place that doesn't seem to speak to me like many have along this journey, I feel homeless. And although I referenced maps and chose the roads to lead me here, I feel lost.

129 the journey is home for eternal travelers until a journey ends.

130 Chapter 14: “the bad place”

A small set of decaying stairs lay upside down in the grass. “Oh, those. Well, they used to be attached to the cabin, but then it sank into the permafrost. Don't need to walk up anymore.”

An ancient, beat up truck sits, parked off of the muddy driveway, half-way sunken into the ground. “Nah, that thing doesn't run anymore. It'll stay here.”

Behind the house, a 300 gallon rusty barrel rests, toppled over in the grass. “Used to hold heating fuel until it fell over. Got left there. Now you got the 100 gallon rigged up.”

“And that over there's the outhouse. Here's the keys! Call me if you've got problems.” The landlord darts off, leaving only a cloud of dust.

Rotting pallets lead you through a wetland littered with decay from the porch to the bad place.

Tall, wild grasses scratch your legs. Mosquitos bite them. The small structure is crooked, resting on waterlogged wood, which, like the cabin and truck, has sunk into the seasonally thawed soil.

Staring at the entrance, it is obvious where hinges used to hold a door, but no more. There is no privacy in this most vulnerable of places. The pot is not properly pitted; instead of a deep, dark hole are stagnant, murky waters. What goes in, flows out, into the surrounding lagoon. The immediate area is a dead zone; slanted black spruce (Picea mariana), stifled by the noxious waters. The air is putrid with shit. When it rains, the water stirs. It smells like sewage - sewage mixed with the decomposing flesh of plants killed off in the water's wake.

131 You can try to avoid the bad place, but at times, it's necessity is inevitable. Save the coffee or

caffeine until after you've left the house - found a better place to conduct business. Otherwise,

alert someone of your whereabouts in case of an emergency. “I have to go to the bad place. If

I'm not back in five, make sure I'm still alive.” Ten-four.

Sit on the somewhat soft blue insulation foam. Hold your breath; raise your shirt above your

nose to prevent particles from entering your system. Do your duty swiftly - no more time than what's necessary. Now, stand up(!), quick! Or else the splash-back will have surprised you. No

amount of wiping could ever cleanse you of that filth.

132 Chapter 15: “Oh Compost! My Compost!”

I'm not necessarily a fan of Walt Whitman. Spoken aloud, this statement is a great evil within a university's department of English. I appreciate all that Whitman accomplished as a poet, but the elaborate enthusiasm - thousands of exclamation points! - and the self-promotion are much too intense for me. I am too cynical to take his ardor as genuine, although I know that, truly, it was.

There is one exception to my distaste for Whitman: I am drawn to his poem “This

Compost.” The poem begins in a dark place. He's not talking about any ordinary compost pile.

No, this compost is nothing like mine- a mixture of cilantro stems, zucchini ends, lime peels, and cabbage cores. Whitman's compost is that of a different kind of flesh, “Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?...Where have you disposed of their carcasses? / Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? / Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?” (9, 11-13). If you've ever read Whitman's Leaves of Grass, you know he is never afraid to talk of the ‘foul,' the disgusting, the unspeakable - even a pimply prostitute makes multiple appearances in his poetry (I'm not sure why Whitman's prostitute must be pimply, always). He will not have us forget all that is wretched - within our bodies, our minds, our souls, and, now, our earth.

But to Whitman, beauty resides even within the ugliest, the stinkiest, the most rotten refuse: “Behold this compost! behold it well!...The grass of spring covers the prairies.The.. resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves.The.. summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of our sour dead” (17,19, 23, 30). From death and decay comes beautiful, budding life. The ideas of rebirth, reincarnation, and resurrection rise up out of his poem like spring grass out of the ground. Much like my own compost, except that

133 mine, located in Alaska, a mere 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle, takes a significantly longer period of time to reach its own beautiful, budding life.

“What chemistry!” Whitman exclaims - and I agree (31)! His stinking, rotting, foul pile of human flesh and my rotting, foul pile of vegetable flesh (perhaps smelling somewhat sweeter, thanks to all those lime peels) are decomposing before our very eyes! And how, you may wonder, is this astonishing decomposition happening? By the flesh of other microbial organisms within the pile of rotting flesh, which are not dead and rotting - no - but living, thriving, eating, and growing off of these putrid particles. What a gift! To ingest rancid flesh and excrete

(basically) soil! If only my compost weren't frozen seven months of the year (at least), then it could get on its merry way of decomposing, instead of seeming to outlast my own lifelong humanly decay.

Years ago, while living in Florida, I only had to throw food scraps into the compost pile, turn my back, and boom - the richest, blackest compost would appear, ready to be worked into the garden soil! After only two or so weeks those sour scraps had transformed. At least that hot, humid weather was good for something. Here in Fairbanks, Alaska, the process takes a little longer. A couple of years longer - unless the compost is perfectly piled, alternating carbon, nitrogen, carbon, nitrogen, stirred often, or flipped frequently. Or, some folks in the far north opt to use worms with an indoor compost system to combat the frozen months. My pile is more of an arctic experiment: how long will the decomposition take with no strategy or care? I'm not sure

I'll be around to find out the answer.

Whitman continues to marvel at the transformation of his meaty compost, exclaiming,

“That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues” (34). I do not recommend this. Please do not rub rotten things all over your body and let them lick you.

134 He continues, “That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, / Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease” (40-41). Whitman is correct, with enough time and the right conditions, piles made up of animal (human included) flesh will eventually decompose and become safe and diseases free; however, it's not as safe as he might assume. If the pile does not reach optimal, hot (preferably 140°F) conditions for the right amount of time (much longer for animal flesh), harmful diseases and bacteria could still be lingering in that pile of compost. For this reason, it is unadvisable to put animal flesh into your own, personal compost pile - especially here in the Far North. Me, well, I consume a plant based diet, so I don't have to worry about any meat scraps or animal secretions.

Nearing the end of the poem, Whitman finds pleasure in this reincarnation of flesh, “[The

Earth] grows such sweet things out of such corruptions...” (43). This line signals more than just the life cycle of organic matter. Whitman is referring to the Earth's ability to absorb and heal man's corruption and hate if we allow it time. And - given that “This Compost” was originally written in 1856, after the Industrial Revolution, but before this phenomena polluted and corrupted humanity and the earth beyond saving - I believe he was correct in his assumption.

But, I ask, will the earth still grow sweet things out of such corruptions? Is the process of decomposition, the natural cycles of rebirth, still enough to save it all?

A few encouraging examples can be seen: Chernobyl's radioactive rebirth, the Elwha

River resurgence after a dam removal (so far, the largest dam removal project in the U.S.) which led to a resurrection of life and salmon spawning, and the early 1900's clear-cut America surrendering to new-growth forests that have reclaimed many landscapes. Yet, at the same time, the mountaintops of Appalachia are still being blown to bits and scraped to pieces, the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge is now fair game for drilling, there are toxic dead zones in the Gulf of

135 Mexico due to our agricultural incompetence, the biologically rich Brazilian rainforests continue to be slashed-and-burned, and destructive deforestation persists in many areas for praised palm oil. We're destroying at a rate too great for the healing to make substantial progress.

But Whitman (lucky Whitman!) is no longer around to see this modern turn for the worse. Whitman continues in his poem, joyous of this potential conversion of energy the earth is capable of:

It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,

It renews with such an unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,

It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last. (45­

47)

Who could disagree with him? Isn't everyone else utterly amazed and thankful for how their own compost piles, given time, will feed life in the garden? Or from the detritus of the forest floor sprout budding, baby trees? Even the mass graves of men will eventually decompose and be incorporated into the grasses which grow from that space (that is, of course, unless the people are buried in materials that will not easily degrade over time, such as a customary coffin, and their bodies are pumped with embalming fluids). In a way, I'm envious of these bodies

Whitman writes about - jealous of their reincarnation. Their allowance to decompose back into the earth that birthed them.

And, in a way, I'm jealous of Whitman too. He lived in a time riddled with hate - “This

Compost” was originally written just five years before the start of the Civil War - but I could argue that I, too, live in a time of hate. Perhaps the Earth has never had the ability to heal our hate. But in Whitman's time, the Earth was still capable of healing our corruptions, our pollutions, our destructions. During Whitman's lifetime, we passed a turning point. The Earth's

136 ability to take our sour scraps and reconstitute them into living flesh is no longer enough. That is, unless we all disappeared tomorrow morning. Then, with enough time, this process would eventually suffice.

When I read, “This Compost,” I think not only of my compost pile, but of my eventual decay after death. I don't wish to be embalmed, or cremated, or buried in some lavish coffin lined with silk. I wish to be buried beneath a tree, or in a mountain valley - I'd hope in nothing but my own flesh and bones, and if in a coffin, a plain wooden box will do - with the allowance of nature to complete its cycle. Those same microbial organisms that once turned my vegetable scraps into rich compost from which my garden sprang, well, I'd want them to eat me too. To devour me slowly (and hopefully under the proper high temperatures to rid me of disease) and decompose me so that I may once again spring forth and be reborn. It may not be enough, but it's the least I can offer- my own life after death.

15.1: Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. “This Compost.” Leaves of Grass: 1891-92 Edition, First Library of America

Paperback Classic Edition, Penguin Group, 2011, New York, NY, 495-497.

137 Chapter 16: “Vultures”

Edward Abbey wished to be reincarnated as a vulture. Oddly enough, my husband feels the same. Either that, or he thinks he was a vulture in some distant, past life. Perhaps these men, aiming to soar the skies, feeding on death to create life, in a new life after their own death, help me to see vultures for what they really are.

In the United States, we associate vultures with death. Dark, grotesque birds feeding on carcasses strewn about the roadside. We are appalled by what we find disgusting. But how could they.we.. wonder, as vultures pluck scraps of meat off the dead. When we find a person to be selfish or exploitative we sneer and call them a vulture. Does it take one to know one?

The species of these scavengers found in North America are the Turkey Vulture

(Cathartes aura), the Black Vulture (Coragyps aratus), and the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). The California Condor has suffered greatly from poaching, poisoning, pollution, and loss of habitat.

The Turkey and Black Vultures, though, are doing just fine. With the amount of roadkill and scraps human technologies offer them, it's no wonder they're doing well. But how can they stand the smell...we wonder to ourselves, holding our noses, as flies buzz around the foul flesh.

We ought to thank these ghastly ghouls, recognize them for what they really are: recyclers.

Roadside cleanup crews. Vultures eat death, remove sad sights we don't wish to see, digest rotten meat with the help of flora in their gut, turn it in to living flesh. But just look at their ugly heads...their featherless heads, also home to a blooming array of microbial life, allow the vulture to dig deep without getting blood and guts and feces stuck amongst the feathers. Instead, their bald heads become bleached by the sun - sterilized clean.

138 We don't wish to see dead animal bodies, piling up, turning our highways into breeding

grounds for disease. This pile up would remind us of the excess in which our society bathes, would show us a fraction of the destruction we casually cause, day to day. When I see vultures

gorging on the surplus of our society, I wonder if they are judging us. I believe thanks to vultures

and other carrion lovers, we don't always have to judge ourselves. They effectively remove a

problem. But they feed on rotten meat...

We prefer our meat to come perfectly packaged in white styrofoam and saran wrap,

sparkling in the fluorescent light. We don't want to remember the life, the death, the carcass - just the meat, that's what we want. We don't want to think about how we must kill to feed, rather than feeding on a kill, like the vulture. We don't want to wonder if we create a problem, rather than removing one, like the vulture. We don't want to know we sabotage a cycle, rather than

completing one, like the vulture. We don't wish to consider that such an ugly creature could

possibly be so superior.

139 Chapter 17: “Garden of the Last Frontier”

One summer, while working at a farm a few miles from my house in Ester, Alaska, I learned three gardening and farming tips that cannot be ignored: (1) Compost! Good compost is the key to all success. (2) Diversity, diversity, diversity. (3) Build tall fencing. Preferably tall electric fencing. Everything is bigger in Alaska - the state itself, the mountains, the wildlife - therefore, the fencing must be too.

That year was the first in several where I was staying put for a summer, with a home to call my own, and therefore a place to call my garden. I had big, bountiful dreams for that summer. The preparation began early - indoors in March - when the days were still bitterly cold, well below freezing, but the sun was at least beginning to show its warm face again.

I had never grown anything from seed in my life. Determined to make it work, I read all of my seed packets, dove into internet holes about starting seeds and gardening in interior

Alaska, and carefully followed instructions. Starting certain seeds can be difficult, regardless of conditions - starting seeds indoors with only minimal true daylight takes effort, babying, attention. Each weekend I planted a different round of seeds, depending on how much time each needed for germination and when exactly it should be planted in the ground: dill, bell pepper, lavender, cabbage, tomato, calendula, comfrey, squash, zucchini, cucumber, the list continued.

Each week, I rearranged all the small, compostable pots to make room for the new. All of the small pots needed sunlight, however, I didn't want them directly on the window sill, where temperatures could freeze newly sprouted plants on a cold night.

Come April, it may have still been winter outside, but inside the Nyberg household green was sprouting up all around us. Each and every tiny little leggy and delicate sprout deserved praise. And I showered them all. Dale! I exclaimed to my husband each day Another calendula

140 has sprouted! Or Dale - my last tomato finally sprouted! Look, come look! He didn't quite care enough to look at every single sprout, but I forced it upon him. My babies needed to know they were loved.

By mid-May all surfaces near windows were overflowing with young plant life. I was running out of room and they were beginning to crowd one another. Only the ground was still frozen outside, snow still covering some areas - I had nowhere to put my seedlings. Don't worry,

I whispered to all of them, you'll grow big soon. The world's not ready for you yet. I prepared my seedlings for their life to come by placing them outside during the day and bringing them in each evening.

Toward the end of May, it was time. Dale built slightly raised beds and I concocted a beautiful mixture of soil. Good luck! I told them, But don't worry, I'll watch over you! I had all of my ducks in line, except for one. Compost - check. Diversity, diversity, diversity - check, check and check. I had plants checker-boarded and intermixed, complimenting one another with grace. No fence yet - I told myself once they got bigger I'd put up a fence. To provide nourishment for their journey of growth, I mixed some blood meal in the soil surrounding each seedling - more for the brassica plants, which are heavy feeders.

The next morning there were fox tracks in all of my raised beds and one of my dogs had dug up a small area where I planted some flower seeds. Damn the blood meal. I told Dale we needed to build some fencing. I've never really been one for fences - artificial boundaries humans create to separate what shouldn't be. But, I needed to provide protection to my offpsring, now at the whim of the external world.

We were proud of the scrap wood, chicken-wire, chest high fencing we built. At each corner of every raised bed, a wooden stake was pounded into the soil. The chicken-wire, stapled

141 to each post, was wrapped around the square, and the last flap was left un-stapled to act as a floppy door that could be opened and closed. It wasn't electric. And it wasn't very tall either- I needed to be able to bend over the fence and reach each plant for watering and harvesting. For a one-summer-only, non-permanent garden, we thought we did pretty well. The plants thought so too. The garden gave us salad for days, the pepper plants started to flower, the squash blossomed abundantly, the broccoli grew nearly as tall as me, the tomatoes taller, and the cabbage - the first seeds I started indoors and a plant that is difficult to transplant - began to grow round and full. I had a green thumb, and I was proud of it.

Each morning, I walked to all of my various raised beds (they were spread around our cabin in different spots, wherever there was enough sunlight) checking on my veggies, herbs, and flowers, greeting them good morning. Each evening, I did the same, walking through and harvesting what was ready for dinner, thanking the plant for all that it provided.

One morning, I walked toward my favorite raised bed - this one was special. It had already given so much, and come this weekend, I would be able to harvest multiple cabbages - the one's I'd started in March - for making sauerkraut. I noticed the bed looked a bit different than the day before, more barren, and I wondered whether Dale had maybe harvested a few items.

I walked closer. I dropped to my knees. My jaw dropped too. My eyes swelled with tears.

I screamed up at the sky, into the world, profanities shooting out of my mouth like a shotgun round, hands clutching at the roots of my hair. Deep, double-sided hoof prints surrounded the bed. And inside - a war zone. What was left of the broccoli - an inch of stem - lay lifeless and uprooted, clear-cut Brussel sprouts sharply severed just above the soil, Romanesco cauliflower

142 carelessly consumed - the leaves broken off and trampled, and the cabbage, my poor cabbage- beheaded.

My babies, who had grown up so big and strong, my babies, who had graduated and gone to college - my beautiful babies were mauled by a moose. I assume they were tasty.

Lesson learned. The fencing should be high - and electric.

143 Chapter 18: “Harboring a Home”

I'm wandering through a gulch near Healy Creek in Alaska. The dogs are running excitedly ahead of me and my husband Dale into this gulch, which is strangely reminiscent of the

American Southwest and unlike any area I have yet to explore in Alaska. Rusty-beige layers of rock engulf us on either side, sheltering us from the whipping summer wind.

Although this gulch looks like a place I'm familiar with, it is completely unfamiliar, and this makes me contemplate Terry Tempest Williams. I've been reading a collection of her essays, and her idea of home seems to be burned into the back of my eyes. I stop and touch the seemingly smooth rock walls and find they are rough. The rock unexpectedly crumbles into sand at my fingertips and I can't stop thinking about what Williams wrote: “Home is the range of one's instincts...Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend. By understanding the dependability of place, we can anchor ourselves as trees.” If home is the landscape you know, then what if you only know the surface of many scapes? I sometimes feel like an uprooted tree.

What does it mean to truly comprehend a landscape? Williams was talking about her own landscape, a place she was born into, a place she lived most of her life, a place she really did come to depend on. I certainly never felt this way about my Floridian birthplace. In fact, the opposite. The flat, humid pine and scrub oak forests bemused me - I knew they held beauty, but

I couldn't figure out how. The smooth, sandy beaches that I wanted to love so badly left me unenthused. Florida was never my home, but only my place of birth - this, I am sure, I have known since leaving the womb of my mother. I needed topographical variation in my life.

My mother is from West Virginia, and the only one in her large family to have left that place. As a child, I spent lots of time nestled in West Virginia's mountains, begging my parents

144 to puhhleeaase move here so that I could have a happy childhood. Are you crazy? My dad would always ask me, there's nothing to do here! When I was around ten, I wrote an essay about how

Elkins, West Virginia was my favorite place in the whole world because it was so green and there weren't bulldozers everywhere. (Was I a tree-hugger from day one? This past self would suggest so.) Obviously, writing this essay as a ten-year old, I wasn't privy to knowledge of the coal mining industry's mountaintop removal happening south of Elkins, near that big bridge we always drove over.

In my adult life, I have wandered from place to place, become acquainted with several landscapes, but never truly (madly), deeply intertwined with one such that my roots have stayed planted in the soil. Appalachia comes the closest - in the end, my bones and flesh are made up of that earth; West Virginia blood surges through my veins. Something about those wise, old, lush mountains repeatedly lures me back. A comfort is drawn from the density of green, the cover which is offered. You are swaddled by mountains, but also by the color green. The Appalachia mountains offer a kind of shelter the Rockies don't.

I bounced around, living in West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina. The mountains of

Tennessee were much too tame for me - really just foothills, and the old money conservatives made my skin peel back, anyway. Destruction finally drove me out of West Virginia. Dale and I kept wandering back to West Virginia, for family, for the New River, for friends, eventually forced to ask ourselves: should we stay? Ultimately, Dale and I weren't willing to stay somewhere we couldn't trust the water coming out of our tap or guarantee the surrounding mountains wouldn't be scraped flat for all they're worth. Morally, this was a difficult decision to make. Does one stay and fight for the mountains and lives of a place so dear? The cancer rates of rural Appalachia, to us, were not worth the risk.

145 We settled on North Carolina for a while, living near the base of Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi. The mountains in that area are big, but unassuming - modest. The Blue Ridge Mountains roll smoothly into the distance, their gentle slopes draped in a hazy blue fog. That area has not yet been destroyed like much of West Virginia, and in fact is protected - Smoky Mountains National Park, Pisgah National Forest, Nantahala and Cherokee

National Forests. But I came to find these places were being loved to death. Traffic in National

Forests. Campsites overflowing. Trails so crowded you'd think you were on a city street. A walk or a weekend in the woods was never alone and, frankly, I'm a loner. I prefer to be in the company of only one - usually Dale, my husband - plus dogs. I don't share space well. Neither does Dale. This is part of what drove us out of Appalachia. What else? Those wise, old mountains have been softened by time. The Appalachian Mountains are mild-mannered, and it turns out I'm a bit of an extremist.

In the gulch near Healy creek, we're beginning to see a thin, clear stream meandering through the bottom, cutting its way. I continue thinking about Williams' words: “.you enter a new landscape in search of the order you know to be there.” Searching for order, this small canyon's walls tell me that water has shaped the gulch: the grinding of ice come spring's breakup, the snowmelt rushing through, occasional flash floods from summer's thunderstorms. I am attracted to landscapes such as this one. Each time I'm run out of Appalachia by the crowds of tourists, I am pulled to the vast, open landscapes and barren, jagged Rockies of the Western

United States. The magnetic pull is always stronger toward the Southwest- the orange hues, the cacti, the rattlesnakes of canyon country. Water has shaped me into who I am, and I appreciate a place that shares this quality. The American Southwest also embodies a rough, minimalistic aesthetic I appreciate. If I were to guess what my soul would look like in physical form, it would

146 be Utah's canyon country. Maybe this part of myself is what forces me out of Appalachia - so crowded with mountains and plants and people - into those more open spaces.

But no matter how much I wish to be a cactus, standing alone, soaking in the sun, slowly watching the world around me change, I never stay. Those southwestern landscapes may be carved by water, but that's all the water is doing: carving, passing through, onto another place (or being taken and held, partitioned off elsewhere). The Southwest is barren for a reason: that type of system can only support minimal life. Cities and agriculture - these don't belong in the desert.

They are draining wells and rivers and running out of water, and then what? In the Southwest, my moral compass falters momentarily, drawn to the entrancing landscape, but then always leads me away. My compass won't allow me to stay in a place pushed past it's ecological boundaries.

We start to climb in elevation as the gulch becomes more narrow, having closed in on us.

Clinging to the edges are various grasses, and a vine-like purple flower known as monkshood, poisonous to the touch. I don't know this though, so I touch it to get a better look, gently raising the flower with my finger. I take a picture and decide I'll look it up in our book back at the car.

As the hike begins to resemble more of a climb, Dale and I are dripping with sweat and the dogs are panting. We all sit down for a rest.

From this high up, we can see Healy Creek's emerald waters glimmering in the sun.

Behind that, Sugarloaf Mountain stands, topped white with fossilized volcanic ash. I know the

Nenana River, brown like chocolate milk, heavy with glacial silt, is to the right, but I can't see it because of the narrow walls I sit between. I think about why I'm here. What has coaxed my southern blood to the circumpolar region? In a way, the boreal forests and tundra offer that same harsh, minimalistic landscape the desert embodies. A short summer season shouldered by bleak, frozen months with little to no sunlight has a way of thinning things out - people and plants. Yet,

147 in some places, Alaska is the greenest summer you could ever see. It has both the lush and barren qualities Appalachia and the American Southwest offer, respectively. And I certainly have lots of space, all to myself, or at least it seems. Fighting crowds is not something I'm forced to do in

Alaska, not even in the peak of tourist season.

Compasses don't always work well this close to the magnetic north pole. My moral compass, too, has trouble finding its way. You'd think living out here on the edge I could find harmony, but I don't. In a winter here, I can never stop thinking about the resources I consume just to stay alive. Driving everywhere, contributing to winter ice fog, excessive heating to keep the cabin sometimes 100 degrees warmer than outside, throwing away recyclables because there's just no other choice, eating food grown ridiculously far away because summer's bounty only lasts so long, and to visit family and friends on the farthest and opposite edge of this continent uses an unthinkable amount of resources.

I stand up and stretch wide. We decide to walk back down and hang out by Healy Creek.

I walk down slowly, gingerly, careful not to slide on the loose sand and gravel, lagging behind my husband and dogs. I know once I'm down at Healy Creek, I'll also see the Healy Power Plant and the Usibelli Coal Mine. Have I really come all this way from southern West Virginia - over

4,000 miles - to be by another coal mine? One on the banks of the river where I spend my days?

Here on the edge of civilization, I've begun to understand that you can't escape. You can't escape the footprint of humans or of yourself. Permafrost melts in places no people live because of people living in other places. Living in Alaska has helped me to understand - more than living anywhere else did - that rather than trying to escape the footprint of society, I should instead try to mitigate my own. Inevitably, this will eventually drive me out of Alaska.

148 I once spent an entire year homeless. I packed up a few belongings and sold all the rest. I travelled, stayed with friends, in a tent, the bed of a truck. But was it only that year I was homeless? Or am I destined to be forever homeless? I don't wish that upon myself. I can only hope that one day I will wander into a place that entices me to go beyond the surface, to truly comprehend. A place I will eventually come to know so well, I will depend on it. A place where

I will finally allow myself to become rooted like a tree.

How will I know when I find this place? I am perplexed by how anyone makes the decision to call a place ‘home' or how someone chooses to keep the home they are born into.

Perhaps I'm considering too many factors - the physical landscape, the community present, my moral compass, the density of humans, the footprint of humans - to ever find a place that harmoniously coincides with what I'm searching for. Sometimes I dream of going back to

Appalachia, thinking maybe that's the homeland I've harbored all along and never knew it. But then I think of all the places I have yet to discover, and it seems as if the weight of my life is crushing me. I am a tumbleweed, and once the wind has picked me up, it's hard to stop rolling.

Is it the landscape that entices a person to stay, to comprehend? Or is it the person that chooses the landscape, makes a conscious choice to become rooted, regardless of any other place? I don't have the answers to these questions nor do I know how to find them. I want to call a place home. A place that aligns with my moral obligation to the land and my need to feel rooted. I just wish I had a compass that pointed toward home, wherever that may be, so I could follow it. So I could know for certain.

But I don't. Instead, I'll keep walking through this gulch, and probably another next weekend, covering a few more inches of Earth, in hopes of finding my homeland.

149