The stars shift overhead, but I pay them no mind. Everything I have is bent on my little boat. Blow, listen, feel, patch. When the night has reached its darkest point, the tube sits before me, full and waiting. I pace my spit of land, looking for the best place to launch. Only now do I realize how small this place is, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs and fast water. Had it not been for the boat, I would’ve been trapped.
In the end, no place is better than any other. I’m not afraid of drowning, having grown up as a river rat. I’m afraid of getting wet and getting cold. It’s much warmer tonight than it has been, but once I’m dunked in river water, it’ll feel freezing in a hurry. Just as I start to overthink the problem, I find my courage and jump in.
The motion is as smooth and seamless as anything I’ve ever done in the show ring. There’s a tremendous relief in the action. Not only did I stay dry, but my body and mind felt like my own again. In pushing off from the land, I felt athletic and brave. I felt like a fighter. I felt like me.
I’m not dead yet.
The water moves quickly, but not so quickly that it scares me. I pull a floating stick out of the river to use as a raft pole, well aware rapids might make such a thing necessary. But so far it looks manage-able, and hopefully it will stay that way.
I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
For a few minutes I simply sit in my boat and let go of a lot. And when I’ve let go of enough, I lean back and find myself literally star struck.
Framed by rock and tree is a night sky unlike any that has ever been or ever will be. It is too big to understand, but I can’t stop trying to understand it. I want it all. I want to take it all in. Every enormous star, the haze of the Milky Way, the deep blue-black of space, it is vast beyond my ability to reckon. Behind me the river gurgles a soundtrack, accompanied by the rustle of the trees. It is beautiful.
In this otherworldly moment I am profoundly grateful to be here, to be alone, to experience this thing that no one has ever experienced and that no one else ever will.
Even if I die, I will have known this.
As I gaze up into the stars, my grandma’s favorite exclamation comes to me. “Heavens above!” The sound of her voice and all the different ways she says that phrase—irritated, awed, happy, -dismayed—run through my mind. It cracks something open inside me, and all the things I’ve held back, the voices and faces of my loved ones, my prayers for survival, all of it comes rushing back to me. The wind freeze-burns the path my tears have made.
Without warning I start to sing. I didn’t even know a song had fought its way to the surface of my mind, but it’s there, coming out of my croaking throat.
“O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining . . .”
It is my favorite hymn. I have no voice for singing, never have, but I sing it anyway.
“It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. . . .”
It’s no time for Christmas carols, floating half-dead down an unknown river in the middle of autumn, and yet this carol wants to be sung.
“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices . . .”
It’s not the right line. The song is coming out fractured, broken. I don’t care. I just sing whatever line presents itself.
“Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! / O night divine, the night when Christ was born . . .”
I fall silent. I think the singing is over, but then the chorus rises up within me, and I fully let go of the music, letting it sail all the way to the heavens above.
“O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!”
And then once more, softer, almost a whisper.
“O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!”
As the last line dies upon my lips, the moon makes its appearance, sliding out casually from behind a rock face. He’s not as full as he once was, but he remains blindingly bright.
“Moon!” I say. “Oh, Moon, it’s good to see you.”
It’s good to see you, too, he seems to say to me. You’re alive.
“I am.”
It’s good to be alive.
“Yes, it is.”
Take courage and rest. I will watch out for you.
“Thank you, Moon.”
The night returns to the music of the river and the trees. I half shut my eyes and open my ears, listening for the sound of rapids. I don’t worry, though. The moon is protecting me. If rapids are ahead, I’ll hear them and it will be okay. It’s important to rest, to feel whatever peace is available to me. Who knows how long it will last.
I wake up, curled into a ball at the bottom of my boat. There’s no memory of how my night ended, but I’ve run aground in a shallow tributary. The main river is to my right, only a few feet away. The sun is up, and today promises to be even warmer than yesterday. My socks have dried, which is nice.