Good Company

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I had never loved a river until I lived in Montana. 

My first day in Missoula I waded out into the green flow, up above my knees.  It was late August and hot, but—I didn’t know this then—the nights up in the mountains were autumn-chilly already and the river was cold.  I stood there anyway, blank and alive in a place where I knew no one and nothing, the top half of my body burning and the bottom half freezing, the current pushing hard at the backs of my legs.

For three winters I watched the ice creep across the river’s surface, stretching out from each bank, some years to meet in the middle, other years falling short.  I stood on the bridge in early morning darkness and watched snowflakes fall on slow black water and disappear. 

For three springs the Clark Fork’s waters rose and rose, urgent and dangerous, and I watched with dread and fascination.  One spring I fished a clumsy little boy out of one its swollen tributaries, and only hours later began shaking with the understanding that for a few seconds, I’d held his life in my hands. 

One Fourth of July, a friend and I floated down the Clark Fork in inner tubes.  The water was low and we giggled when our asses scraped bottom, shrieked when the current propelled us towards the foamy gook gathered around bridge pilings, hung our heads back so our hair trailed in the water and sunshine forced our eyes closed.

Another summer, Clark Fork water brought my first real garden into being, despite my benign neglect, and between the tiny miracle of fresh cherry tomatoes and the constant, changing flow of the river, a broken heart healed smooth and strong. 

It takes more than three years to really know a river, I realize.  For each time I sat silently with the river and gathered it to my heart, there were two times that I biked or walked or drove by without a second thought.  I never did learn to fly fish.  But the river was my neighbor, and it mattered to me in a way I’d never imagined a river could matter. 

I don’t pretend that it spoke to me, but it spoke, and sometimes I remembered to listen.  I don’t pretend that it marked the seasons of my life, but it marked the seasons, and my life flowed next to it for a time—and now and then, made more sense simply by virtue of being in good company.