What's It All For?: Day Two of 40 Miles in 48 Hours

It's safe to say the Rogue River is a member of our immediate family. Both Sky and I spent years guiding there, we fell in love there, we took friends and family boating on it for our pre-wedding celebration. When my son, River, was one-and-a-half-years-old, his first multi-day river trip was on the Rogue. From then on, it became our yearly pilgrimage; the refuge we could always count on to settle us back  into our roots as people, partners, parents. Even when my daughter, Azure, was six-months-old, we still went-- I hiked on the trail with her strapped to my belly and met up with the boat at lunch and at camp. One of the top five reasons we moved to Ashland was to be able to be on the banks of the Rogue in less than an hour.

At three-years-old, Azure has been down the Rogue four times. At eight, River has been nine times (we went twice one year). Over the course of those trips, we have littered that corridor with hundreds of memories that make that river valley one of the most precious pieces of earth in the world to me.

So though Day Two should have been a whopper (I haven't run more than 15 miles in a long time, let alone 15 after running 13-plus twelve hours prior), the truth is the run was actually pretty enjoyable. It's hard to have a bad day when you're running through the last nine years of delicious memories.

 I can see little one-year-old River parroting his dad's sweeping foot movements as Sky levels a spot in the sand for us to sleep.

There we are, hanging our heads over the side of the raft, trying to spot tiny turtles sunning themselves on rocks.

There is Sky and River in the crisp morning sunlight as they watch a doe and her fawn foraging for breakfast inches from the toes of our sleeping bags.

There's us doing cartwheels on the sprawling lawn of the Rogue River Ranch.

 
There is Azzy--the one who eats like a bird, the one who has been on constant weight-watch with her doctors since she was an infant--opening the "snack box" yet again, thank God, to grab another goodie with her two-year-old fists.

There is eight-year-old River rowing our loaded gear boat through his first Class II rapid.

There is baby Azzy in the front of my Ergo, head tilted back and her little milk-glossed lips relaxed in sleepy open "O" as we hike the trail.

There is one-year-old River, falling asleep on me in the longest rapid of the trip. 

There we are in a meadow of wild irises, Azzy still tiny in my belly.

There are the rocks where Azzy and River learned how to jump into water.

That's the bridge on which we mark the kids height each year.

One of the best aspects of our Rogue trips is that they exist outside the realm of "Shoulds." When you become a parent, there are so many Shoulds. The ones with the capital "S"s. Your to-do list explodes because suddenly you are not just responsible for one person, but multiple people. And underneath the rattle and hum of all the daily routines and bone building, is this gnaw of "What's all this for? What are we creating? What are we trying to create?"; there is a desire for some sort of mission statement, piers to hopscotch on through the foggy valley.

Sky and I actually did that once online--made a mission statement using some annoyingly detailed yet somehow too general web program for such things. Later we forgot not only our passwords to get into our mission statement account but also what the site was even called. The irony of that is not lost on me.

But being out there on the trail with 15.6 miles to contemplate all the crumbs of "Us" we have left in that river corridor made me realize we have always had a mission statement, passwords or not. We created it oar stroke by oar stroke, dusty footfall after dusty footfall. It is a messy, scribbled on mission statement. It bears chocolate stains and dirt smudges. It has creases from being folded and shoved into back pockets too many times. It's not snappy, or concise, there is no logical flow, and there is a lot of blank space at the end for additions. It goes something like this:

Get dirty.
Open your eyes under the water.
Embrace. Embrace. Embrace.
Get stars in your hair.
Open the snack box.
Protect the little things around you.
Feel the sun warm your skin.
Know kindness as an activity.
Get callouses. Get cut.
Find church where you are.
Offer your open hands.
Notice the music around you.
Watch the water for clues.
Ask questions.
Listen.
Laugh deeply and often.
Let nature sustain you.
 

 The other day on the way to soccer practice River asked me "Do you believe in God?" as nonchalantly as if he were asking me if I liked potato chips. He always busts out with these Big Questions when I am elbow deep into cleaning a toilet or halfway through a grocery shopping trip.

"Well, what do you mean by 'God', what's your definition of God?" I volleyed back. We talked, back seat to front, about our views on God and religion. I told him my mom always taught me that church could be anywhere.

"I know what you mean, " he said, "because when I'm in the woods, that's when I feel most at home."

Sounds like he has seen the mission statement too.