My goal with a vacation is to keep the wonderful feeling of rest, excitement and connection alive at least until the following Wednesday. You know how it is, as soon as you return to work or to the real world you get hit by a barrage of emails, fires that have gone on, drama that people want to catch you up on. It’s all the stuff that was irrelevant to you while you were on vacation and is now high priority. I’ve even said to my team at one point, “Your job is to make my first day back sane.” I have a friend who stays home on the Monday after vacation just so she can catch up on email and make the reentry into the world of work a little easier.
The white water rafting trip to the Grand Canyon was definitely different. The wonder of being in the Grand Canyon stayed with me in ways that I haven’t had a vacation stay with me. Maybe it was influenced by the fact we traveled there in August 2020 in the midst of COVID-19. Maybe it was returning, continuing to sequester and working from home but for some reason the feeling of wonder did not leave me. We returned on Wednesday to Ohio, the day after we got off the river. I took off the rest of the week and perhaps that additional time was a factor. I woke up at two or three in the morning and would reach for my pen because the thoughts coming to me needed written down. The memories from being in the canyon stayed with me and I sought out information and books to round out the story, and to continue the connection.
The one trip guide gave me a book about the experiences of the river guides. I read the chapters as if they were a smooth chocolate to savor – slowly, mindfully. I read a chapter; put the book down and walk away to reflect. I didn’t want the book to end. When it did end I found the list of the different writers and their websites. I followed each path of discovery on the websites fascinated by their stories and their lives. I checked the internet for other pictures, videos, and even other rafting groups. I checked Amazon for books, and then reserved them at the library, and waited eagerly for the emails that would tell me the books had arrived to be picked up using the safe, socially distanced protocol. Libraries closed to the public in 2020– the madness of it all.
Nearly every day I scrolled through the pictures on my phone that I had taken. I reviewed the photo books from the library. I read through the essays of other peoples’ experiences rafting through the canyon. I couldn’t get enough. I even bought an adult coloring book of the canyon and studied the real pictures to try to duplicate it with colored pencils. (BTW – coloring is a great coping mechanism for political turmoil that was also present when I returned.) There was something about the simplicity of being in nature but the complexity of the depths of the canyon and the water that seemed to open me up. The short essays that follow are those pieces that needed written otherwise they wouldn’t let me go, and I would not sleep.
Everyone should raft down the Grand Canyon, but can everyone? No – and there’s a lot of reasons for not being able to do so. Was the trip on my bucket list? Uh, no. How I even ended up there is a bit of a surprise especially during COVID-19 and now as I reflect on that happenstance – was I really invited to the Grand Canyon, or had I been summoned? There is a difference.
