Nature’s Grace

As soon as I was old enough, I made plans to take a road trip to a secluded spot in Northern California that I had fallen in love with while on a family trip years before. I remembered that the confluence of the two rivers where we rafted was called Ishi Pishi Point, and I convinced two friends to drive the 600 miles south to go camping there with me. We arrived late at night, having passed the last traffic light or street lamp hours before, and were grateful to find the entrance to a rustic campground. In the morning we were pleased to discover that we were the only campers there.

Each day, we would roll out of our sleeping bags when the morning sun began to turn our tent into a nylon oven. We would wash up in the water spigot and make coffee before hiking down to the swimming hole. We spent a blissful week there, the same simple routine, broken only by occasional trips three miles down the road to the pay phone and roadside general store for ice and a quick call home.

On our little private beach, I would lay in the sun until my skin was taut and dry from the heat. Then, I would roll myself off my towel and head to the river’s edge. I would stand there for a minute, letting the water lap at my feet, as I scanned the cliff’s high edge for movement. I had been fortunate enough once to catch a glimpse of a bear, close enough to get my heart racing and far enough away to prevent panic. Another time I had been awoken from shallow sleep by the sound of splashing. Sitting up, I found two bear cubs playing in the river, not twenty feet away. They startled and ran when I stood up, and mama bear never made an appearance.

Wading into the river, I would stop before the water reached my hips, to draw a deep breath and then dive in. Underwater, I would swim forward to a spot deep enough to sink down without touching bottom. I would swish my head back and forth to allow the water to fan my long hair around my face. My limbs soft, they would sway just enough to keep me suspended slightly below the surface.

It was in these moments, the river’s cool current awakening each of my body’s skin cells, my hair floating all around me, my arms and legs supported without effort by the water, that the separation between me and the world would disappear. I would melt into the space that I imagine we all lived in before our birth, when there was no separation between self and creator. I would stay there, in that magic space, until the need for breath would rush me back into my own singular body, instructing my arms to reach up and pull me back to the surface.

I returned to our camping spot every summer until the year before I got married. Now I dream about the time when my children are older and I drive them the long trip through two states, off of the interstate onto the twisting country highway, and off the highway onto the narrow road winding into the mountains. I hope that there is still a place with trees as far as you can see, and water clean enough to drink, so that they too can find nature’s grace.