It occurred to me today driving to The Taylor, that I will never draw a breath on this earth that doesn’t have alive, inside of it, the wish that I could go back and do things differently. As I drive over Cottonwood Pass I am in awe of the mountains. There is nothing quite like Colorado in the fall. I get out of the truck and get dressed up for church, my mind wandering. The chill is coming off of the water as it cuts its path through stones a million years old. The yellows and reds of the aspens paint the mountains in broad strokes. I grab my gear and make my descent towards the river. I’m all alone now, save the fly rod in my right hand and the taste of Levi Garrett lingering in my mouth. For a moment I stop and remind myself to breathe. Gradually I lose my name and all that comes with it, and there is peace. The wreckage of my sordid past slips away slowly, taking with it the regret and the shame; the things that could have been. My fears of life and its uncertainties dissipate; the future that looms over my soul loses its grip and there is no tomorrow. I don’t find this place often enough. It’s where I can be who I’m meant to be. The wanderer, the seeker of cities and souls, the dreamer that can’t escape his dreams…
The sound of a trout plucking a PMD off the water’s surface catches my attention and brings me back for a moment. “Nothing gold can stay.” I ease my way down to the water and slowly wade out until the water is about knee-deep. It takes my breath away, the strength of this universe. The forces I cannot see, pushing against my legs. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. Stand in a river and get lost in the repetitive motion of casting a fly. When it’s right, when I’m good, when I see a fish begin its ascent towards the end of my line…my god, there’s nothing like it. And god, as I know god, is in that river and in that fish. It is in the breeze, frigid and dry against my parched lips. Sometimes, I lose entire days to these moments. Fittingly, what I remember at the end of the day is the one I missed. It’s my excuse to continue this chase, this chase that, when I’m honest, really has nothing to do with catching fish. Some of the best days I’ve ever had on the river ended in a zero on the board. I could spend an eternity here in this place. I could stand in this river of dreams until I just become someone else. Until I become nothing. Because the anonymity I’ve been trying to find my whole life, the connection to something bigger than myself, it’s here. Somewhere between red and yellow aspens and majestic eagles soaring through blue cloud-patched skies. Out here, I don’t have to worry about what my purpose is on this earth or what my potential might be. Because here I’m just a tiny spec of flesh in this big picture.
As the sun starts to set and darkness begins to settle in I begin the walk back towards the car silently. Tomorrow is another day if I can make it there, and the wishes for a different past begin to return with each step I take. As I drive off, I thank this universe for another day. I thank it for those moments of reprieve from myself. Many days I make that long drive home in silence, lost in thoughts of the miracles I was just reminded about. I’ve lived my life with the full intention of being absorbed by chaos and darkness. Yet here I am, in spite of myself, alive, sober, and somewhat at ease. No one tells you how hard it is to step into the light. How awkward it is to feel serene. How uncomfortable it is to not be sad and afraid and lost every minute of your waking hours and in your sleep. It’s hard to have hope. It’s hard not to wait for the worst to come crashing down. Seven years sober and 27 years around recovery, and I still get swept up by the need to destroy myself. It’s been a long time since I seriously thought about stabbing my arm, and for that, I’m grateful. But the voices, the fear-riddled soul…it seems to heal much slower than the drugs are taken away. In many ways, sobriety is a game of patience and perseverance. Two things that I’ve never been comfortable with. Sometimes, in rare moments of clarity, I can see with some degree of honesty how far I have been brought from that suicide mission in Mexico.
My life today is unrecognizable compared to that. I still hold those scars, though. Tucked away somewhere in some corner of some dark room in my mind. Now and then, I pick those scars up and re-feel everything that they hold. I polish them, and I talk to them before I put them back in their hiding place. The grace of the universe is that I always put them back again. There is not enough time on this earth for all the love I want to give. I just watched my friend watch his sister slowly die for the last few weeks of her life. He said at one point, “We all walk each other to the end.” Those words rattled the core of my being. I have waded through an immense amount of grief in the last year. Suicide and overdoses, people and places I always thought I had time to revisit. I thought I had time, and this is the problem. Now, I wish I had said so many things that never escaped my lips. So I go to the river to remember these things, these people. I go to the river to cry and to talk to whatever it is that’s out there beyond the sun and the stars. I leave the river to carry those thoughts, those memories, into the lives of the people on this earth that I cherish. Because I don’t want to leave this world with every second of my last breaths tainted by the wish that I had done things differently. This is what sobriety has given me.
No Rhymes or Reasons: where freeform poetry meets literary snobbery 