The Gallatin, near Cameron Bridge, Fall 2009
When I was a little girl, "The River" was a mythical place that edged the boundaries of my family's small existence. There were two rivers actually, the Missouri and the Musselshell, but one only ever spoke of "the" River, as if it were the centering force of the universe. I loved the sound of the water flowing.
The River (usually the Gallatin because it is so near my home, but sometimes the Yellowstone, or the Madison as well) is still a place of magic to me. I never know what I will encounter there.
Once in the springtime, Bella found a snake hatch. A whole rocky slope covered with slithering aliveness. We were both entranced at the abundance of renewal and she was quick to pick up one baby Garter after another and utter "Isn't it cute Mommy?" Cute, well, maybe, amazing definitely.
Another time the dead and bloated carcass of a large dog floated where our dog often chases after his own splashes. Quiet gasps and "Oh no, that's so sad," from both my girls. We couldn't stop looking.
In the winter once we discovered no matter how hard we hurled rocks in a certain iced over pool, the ice would not break, but just down the way we created hundreds of little holes, reveling in the "plunk" and tiny spout of water rising each time. That day we skated too, for hours.
The girls have even given names to some of our little places, most memorably "Isabella Island," inspired one snowy cold day after listening to hours of Shackelton's spooky adventures in the Antarctic.
I go to the water to feel calm, to let myself breathe. It's a place to reconnect with my family too. It's also real and alive and sometimes dangerous. Sometimes I can't shake a haunted feeling of being watched or followed. We've met scary people more than once (are they there to find calm too?) and once Bear Cub almost lost himself in the current of the Missouri. Once a poor little turquoise stuffy bunny fell into the irrigation ditch and needed much rescuing.
In some deep way, the River is where I mark passage in this life. It is where my sweetest and most profound memories of my children, eyes wide with curiosity, live in my imagination. My favorite photograph of myself is one where I crouch on the edge of the water, back to the camera, paints in hand and the wide expanse of water taking up the entire background. Bella took it, many years ago.
Where do you go to find your soul? Where do you feel truly alive?
"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy"
~Rumi ~
