THE ISOLATION JOURNALS - DAY 26 - A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

Today’s prompt:

What’s a memory of a collective ritual, inherited or invented, that was meaningful or formative to some part of your identity? Write about it. Who was there? What was the activity? What were the words that were used? What time of year was it? How did it make you feel? And years later, how might it have shaped you?

A River Runs Through It

There’s a quiet town way north of San Francisco, not far from the Oregon border, that is popular among a certain circle. The first year we went, I couldn’t understand the appeal. The town has one main street, but many of the shabby shopfronts were closed.

There is a river famous for fly fishing, but I was constantly afraid my young sons would fall in and drown.

There is an astonishingly beautiful waterfall, but you have to walk a mile on treacherous train tracks to get there and another mile on those same tracks to get back.

That first year, we visited in July, and it was nearly 100 degrees all week. My husband spent hours fly fishing, so I was mostly on my own to keep the boys occupied, safe from drowning, and nourished with three meals and multiple snacks every day.

“This is not a vacation,” I said that first year. “Certainly not a vacation I want to repeat.”

We went back to that town for a week’s vacation every July for the next ten years.

I’m not a glutton for punishment. Far from it. I love nothing better than the comforts of civilization. My ideal vacation is going to Paris or London or Amsterdam, visiting world-class museums, eating at great restaurants, drinking lots of wine. But there was something about the quiet town that my boys loved – and that they love to this day.

Maybe it was the heat. Living in San Francisco, summers are cold, foggy, and gray. But for that one week, my boys could run around wearing swim trunks and nothing else.

Maybe it was the lack of schedule. Growing up in the city, my boys were constantly being shuttled between summer camps and playdates and errands. But for that one week, we’d sleep in late, amble over to the motel pool, maybe dunk ourselves in. We played horseshoes, ate soft-serve, made “ant houses” out of river rocks while Dad fished.

Maybe it was the simplicity. Within blocks of our home, we have a dizzying array of cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, German, Central and Eastern European, Russian, American – I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch. But for that one week, we had three choices: pizza, burgers, or eat in. We ate a lot of Lucky Charms with milk.

Whatever the reason, my boys looked forward to that one week each summer. And over the years, I looked forward to it as well.

I looked forward to the ritual of walking up and down the main street on our first day in town, seeing which shops were still in business (the fly shop, the thrift store) and which were not (the candy store, the antique shop, and saddest for us, the Subway sandwich shop).

I looked forward to the physical pleasure of walking into the air-conditioned burger shack when it’s 102 degrees outside and then sucking down a fresh strawberry milkshake.

I looked forward to the mile-long walk along the train tracks, listening to the roaring river below, feeling the blazing sun on our face and arms, picking the fat blackberries growing alongside the trail and tasting their gloriously sweet juice.

I looked forward to sitting on the big flat rock in front of the misty waterfall, especially when the late afternoon sun would light up the water droplets like golden fairy dust.

Mostly, I looked forward to slowing down. Forgetting about “doing” and focusing on “being.” Savoring each moment, especially as those moments seemed to fly by so fast.

The past several years, it’s been harder for us to make our annual trip to the quiet town. We’ve grown older and busier, and something – deadlines, summer jobs, life in general – seems to get in the way. When we can’t make the trip in July, we aim for Thanksgiving instead.

The town is just as quiet — perhaps even more so.

The waterfall is just as breathtaking.

But most important of all:

We are all still together.