Take Me to the River, Part I: 19 Nervous Breakdowns

dry run, carport, June 5

Tell people you're taking your 10-month old baby and almost-three-year-old toddler whitewater rafting down a remote desert river for a week, and most of them will cock their heads and look at you like you're a little nuts. But no one was more skeptical in the weeks leading up to our San Juan river trip than the shrewish, spoilsport voice in my own head. As our adventure approach, my inner Debbie Downer got louder and harder to ignore. “What?" she'd fairly scream at me. "You’re taking a 10 month old rafting? What are you thinking?” In the face of her grating scorn, I couldn't come up with a good answer, so I asked my closest friends, my mother, my sister, anyone who would listen, in an apologetic, disbelieving tone, like I half-expected myself to cancel at the last minute.

You might think that since not one person told me to pull the plug, I would have taken that as a vote of confidence and quit worrying, but deep down I thought they were too polite or nervous to say so, and I knew that the one—and only—person I had to convince was myself, and no one could do that but me. The night before we were supposed to leave, after I’d spent all day sorting an absurd amount of non-perishable kiddy snacks—more Pirate’s Booty and whole-wheat organic fig bars than a small army of kids could consume in six months—I gave up and went outside. Even if this wasn’t the most deranged and irresponsible idea ever hatched, there was absolutely no way it could ever be worth the epic preparations and logistical toil that had been required of us.

Bleary-eyed from a zillion what-ifs, I collapsed in the fading butterfly chair beside my dad’s peach tree and, feeling like the most reckless and wussiest mother on the planet, proceeded to sob out all my insecurities and doubts. What if the kids drowned? The river is as muddy as chocolate milk—anything accidentally dropped in would disappear forever. How would we keep them in the boat? What if Maisy got stung by a bee and her head blew up like a weather balloon? 

Dad’s tree just swayed a bit in the breeze, and sight of its leaves, finally unfurling now that summer had decided to stay, like hands waving back at me—calmed me a bit. At some point I realized I wasn’t talking to the tree anymore, but directly to Dad, and it seemed not unreasonable to think he might be able to hear me, and then it was not a stretch to sort of discern what he was saying back. In his deep, reassuring voice: You’re doing the right thing. You're doing a good thing. Mildly amused but never mocking. Unflappable. 100% understanding. 

packing the most important staple of all: beer

On my last visit with Dad before he died, we sat outside together in the weak, slanting November sundown. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I had decided to stay on with Dad a few extra days so I could go with him to see a new doctor. His oncologist had just told him he was no longer a candidate for chemotherapy and it was time to call Hospice. This seemed like a major fork in the road—perhaps the biggest and last decision he’d ever make—and I’d urged him to get a second opinion. 


That day as we watched Steve and Pippa and my sister drive down the long driveway, Dad turned to me and said, “You and Steve are really doing a good job with the girls.” He didn’t seem to have the strength or desire to talk much, but contained in this one comment, I knew, was unspoken admiration for our efforts to expose the girls to as much adventure and fresh-air as possible. We’d had conversations about this in the past, and it seemed enormously important to him, a validation of his own philosophy of parenthood, when as a younger father, he’d take us camping in a musty mustard tent on the Delaware River, snow-hiking on Skyline Drive, clamming in Maine, and amateur-spelunking in ticky-tacky Luray Caverns over the hump of the Shenandoah Mountains.

Two years ago, when we decided to do the same San Juan rafting trip with 10-month old Pippa, Dad had grilled me for every detail and then boasted of our bravery to his friends. Sitting there next to his peach tree, I could hear him, reminding me in his low, calming Dad voice how important it is to let kids explore and be wild and play outside and get dirty and not have every minute scheduled with Stuff and Things to Do. 

So there I sat beside the tree, blubbering to the evening breeze and to Dad wherever he was, in the midst of it all. When it seemed like I’d said my peace and he’d said his, I went back inside and finished packing the snacks. That’s when it hit me: We had done our homework and our legwork. We’d done this before and knew what we were getting into. We weren’t winging it or being reckless. We were Prepared. And all that preparation had to count for something. 

I shoved the last of the zillion packs of pureed fruit baby food into the dry bag and, heaving that mountain of snacks onto my back, felt suddenly and unexpectedly unburdened. Even better, a tingly goosebumpy anticipation began to creep over me, reminding me exactly of the way I used to feel when it was just Steve and me heading out into the unknown, when there was less at stake, and no one to plan for but ourselves. The feeling was so familiar and dear, I couldn’t remember ever not feeling it—that old rush of freedom and anticipation and possibility, the precursor to everything good to come and one of the very best reasons we go. 

And so began our adventure....

At the put-in, finally, June 7