Return to Rainy River

Every fall, in my American Literature class, I read The Great Gatsby with my students. Not very original, I know, but classics are classics for a reason. And every year, when Nick realizes that Gatsby believes, without doubt, that he and Daisy will simply rewind the clock together, erasing what's happened in the years since their separation, and erasing the people they've become in order to go back to the people they once were, I join Nick in his incredulity and marvel over the absurdity of Gatsby's point of view. "You can't repeat the past," Nick tells Gatsby every fall, and every fall Gatsby replies, "Of course you can!"

Despite my annual criticisms of Jay Gatsby, it turns out I've been guilty of similar thinking.

Last November I turned 40, and my friend Char turned 60. For years we imagined some sort of epic adventure to commemorate this shared milestone. For a while, that epic adventure was supposed to be a trek in Nepal. In fact, when I turned 30 I was also supposed to go to Nepal—it was the planned destination that semester for my traveling school, but the summer before our departure, Nepal's crown prince went berzerk and killed 9 members of his royal family, before shooting himself. He too died days later and Nepal was in turmoil, so we planned to go to Thailand instead. It was September of 2011 and Thailand didn't happen either, but now I'm getting off track.

As the big 40/60 birthday year approached, Char and I started discussing Nepal again. And Sam was on board too—he bought me a guidebook for my 39^th birthday and promised to help me get to the Himalayas the following year. By the time 40 was approaching, Quinn had just turned one, and she was crawling, and cute, and starting to really grow on me. And the more I thought about being away for three or more weeks, the time it would take us to really do the trip the right way, the more petrified I became. I knew I wasn't ready to leave.

The problem was that my traveling partner was in a different position: For Char, getting to Nepal sooner rather than later was going to be important. I was so afraid of backing out on her...I didn't want to let her down. But, I got lucky: she was asked to join a big geology trip to Egypt last winter and, by the time she got back, she felt like she had used up her "out of the comfort zone" big adventure for the year. Either that or she sensed my anxiety and gave me an easy out. Either way, I could exhale: I was off the hook.

Instead of the Himalayas, we started discussing other trip options a bit closer to home. Pretty quickly we arrived at the idea of doing a paddling trip; for a number of years, Char and I would go on a paddling trip together every summer—so this idea brought us back to our roots, and we liked that. And once we knew we wanted to paddle, we pretty quickly focused our thoughts on the Boundary Waters—one of the world's quiet water Meccas.

Last March we started planning and what we pulled together was a week-long backcountry loop of lakes and portages in Canada's Quetico Provincial Park, the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters. We agreed to drive out, leaving from her Adirondack camp the day after Sam's annual Lake Placid lacrosse tournament ended. And from the moment our plan for the trip came to be, I looked forward to it every day.

I looked forward to the quiet water, and the quiet. I looked forward to the new scenery, and the adventure of it all. I looked forward to reuniting with my old gear—my beloved one-person tent, my favorite-ever sleeping bag which has been a comforting friend on countless great adventures since its first in 1993—a week on the Long Trail with Kim. I looked forward to seeing my trusty and easy to light, no muss no fuss camp stove, and my favorite pewter spoon found in the basement kitchen at Adventure Quest before my first international trip—my eating utensil of choice on every single camping trip since. I even looked forward to the two-day drive out, and the two-day drive back, because a good roadtrip, with a good friend, is good for the soul.

On every bad day, between March and the beginning of August, I thought ahead to my trip and took solace in knowing that it would eventually arrive. Ten days on my own, I felt sure, was going to be like going back in time. I was going to be free—of people and schedules and expectations—and navigating through a new wilderness was going to be a great adventure. Schlepping my two heavy packs, my paddle and our canoe over 18 rough portages (some a third to a half-mile long) was going to be physically demanding. We would be camping among bears, and moose, and wolves. And we didn't know fully what to expect—it was perfect. I couldn't wait to get going—to get moving back into my old skin—the free and independent and adventurous former me who, for the past seven years has been too busy building a house and building a marriage and growing a baby to get out and do anything as awesome as the things I used to do all the time. I've been missing that girl and I couldn't wait to find her again, somewhere out in western Ontario in the middle of the big woods.

My mind is like that—very black and white. The trip would be good. My old self was better than my new self, and I just needed a trip to bring her back. All things clear and absolute. Rather Gatsby-like really. 

As our departure date got closer and closer, the panic started to settle in. Sam was off playing lacrosse and Quinn and I were home together. I was scrambling to get ready—to pack, to shop for my half of the camp food, to leave things at school in order so I could return from the trip and go right to the opening day of school the next day, to pay the bills, clean the house, buy diapers and supplies to keep Sam stocked for the ten days that I would be away…And in the midst of all that work, despite my attempts not to think about it, I started to wonder how I was going to be away from Quinn for that many days.

The trip was a nice idea, but it was proving to be a tough reality. I had worried about whether I was in shape enough to handle the physical challenges, but it had never crossed my mind to wonder whether I would be equipped to handle the emotional challenges. It's been so long since my last big adventure that I had forgotten just how much I miss Sam when I'm away. And Quinn didn't even exist as an idea last time I did something like this. I didn't, at the time, know what it would feel like to have a tiny little person put her fleshy little palm to my cheek and say, "Mama." Or have that same little person, who can barely speak, put her finger to my chest and say, "You." And then point to herself and say, "Me." I didn't know what it would be like to hear her say, "happy" for the first time, or to say "thank you" for the first time, after 23 months. But these were the words she started saying in the days just before I left: You and Me. Happy. Thank you. 

For the word-lover in me, the irony was too much.

The night before I left, when I couldn't stand to hear her cry in her portable crib at Char's camp, I went upstairs to get her and I sat on the floor with her, and she asked me for "Baby Rocky?" which is what she says when she wants me to cradle her in my arms and sing Rock-a-bye Baby. And I held her as she asked me to and I cried my eyes out. How could I be so selfish as to leave her for 10 days? What if she calls for me and I'm not there, and I'm not even close to coming back? And what happens if, heaven-forbid, something happens to Quinn's mom when she's out on her big adventure? What if I don't come back? And if I do, how am I ever going to be able to let her out of my sight when she's older to have the same kinds of adventures that have been so important to me?

As I sat there holding her and worrying about all this and sobbing, Quinn did this amazing thing: she poked me gently on the nose and started to laugh this sort of fake little laugh…like she was trying to cheer me up but didn't quite know how, and she did it over and over again until finally I was laughing instead of crying. And then I felt even worse about leaving…I knew I'd be lost without her.

The next morning was miserable. We were packed and ready to go by 7:30, and Sam and Quinn walked us to the driveway to say goodbye. I kissed them and got in the car and the last thing I heard was Quinn's little voice: "Bye-bye Mama." I don't remember when I stopped crying, but I eventually did. And sometime after that, Char and I started to catch up, and as we talked the miles and the hours started to pass. And that night I called Sam and he said they were okay. And the next morning, we were up early and driving again. And I knew Char didn't want to spend her trip talking about what was waiting back home, so I learned to keep my thoughts mostly to myself, but I can tell you I thought about Quinn about 98% of the time, despite how good it eventually felt to be paddling, and despite how beautiful everything was.

After dinner, on our first night out, we endured a spectacular thunderstorm with an incredible amount of close lightning. The site I had picked for my tent was ideal for minimizing mosquitos—it was up high, next to a bald rock, away from the trees. It was also ideal for a lightning strike. I spent a few hours lying in my tent listening to the torrential rain and thunder, wishing I was in a different place—not because I was worried about my safety, but because I was worried about putting Quinn's mom in danger. Eventually my anxiety about being struck motivated me to move and I ventured out into the deluge, resigned to the fact that from that point forward I'd be wet for the rest of the night. I unstaked my tent, dragged it down the rocky hill in the pitch black night and set it up next to Char's in a more protected spot down low. Eventually, when I had redone everything and climbed back into my sleeping bag, the storm started to move off, the rain slowed to a drizzle and the world got quiet enough that we were able to hear a timber wolf howling in the distance. It was brief and eerie and magical, and after I heard it I was finally able to fall asleep.

By the time we rounded the southwestern end of our loop days later, and were headed back toward our northeastern end point, I started to really enjoy what we were doing. My body felt firm in places it hasn't in years, and my head felt more clear as well. Quinn never left my thoughts, but somehow it was easier psychologically once we were at least headed toward home—even though we were still days away.

Toward the end of the trip our route was right along the border between the US and Canada—running up the middle of our last chain of lakes. One morning we got an early start and the fog was still lifting over glassy water. We paddled in silence a couple of the last days—Char and I out of sync in our thoughts, despite moving as one on the water. The lakes were narrow that morning and the wooded shorelines were close together—an easy swim if you chose to make it. 

As I paddled I thought of another story: Tim O'Brien's "On the Rainy River" which was named after this very part of the world (we were in the Rainy River District). His story was the story of a young man with a Vietnam draft card in his pocket, sitting in the bow of a boat with the US just behind him and Canada just in front. The old man fishing guide steers the boat wordlessly toward the Canadian shore, and then puts his fishing line in the water and waits. The young man is paralyzed—torn between his sense of family and responsibility, and his desire for freedom and life. In his mind, he jumps in the water, swims to the opposite shore and starts running; he never looks back. But in reality, he doesn't move, and eventually the old man brings him back.

The whole landscape up there is, at times, motionless. It's easy to get turned around, and when you do, you're not sure what you're looking at. 

Gliding through those boundary waters, I felt the same polar pulls within myself, but where one idea ended and another began wasn't always clear. I went up there thinking family would be put on hold for self, responsibility paused for freedom, home and away both distinct. But I realized that is two-dimensional thinking in a three-dimensional life. Family for me is no longer different from self. Responsibility and freedom no longer mutually exclusive. Home stayed with me no matter how far I went.

On our last full day we got to camp before noon and had a long afternoon and evening to spend. I was glad for the time to reflect before returning to the car, and the world, and before heading home. I have a romantic view of what backcountry trips are all about—I always think they are going to be so much fun, and then always they are more difficult than I remember. And of course that's what makes them so important: they challenge our sense of who we are and what we're capable of. Schlepping my gear through buggy woods, and swampy trails, paddling from lake to lake, I realized I wasn't journeying back to a former self—I was getting more acquainted with a new one. I used to feel proud of my adventures, but I've never felt more proud of anything than being Quinn's mom. My last night in the tent, instead of thinking about what I had gained, I was glad to realize what I had lost: the idea that there is a difference between the old and the new.

The day we left the Quetico and got back to the car to head home, we stopped at a little store on our way down the Gunflint Trail to ask about driving routes. I saw a postcard with the image of a beautiful wolf and picked it up. The caption on the back explained "The gray wolf mates for life...all the members of the pack help to care for the young…A lone wolf will give a beautiful and haunting howl when separated from its pack."

We never saw any black bears, and never saw a moose. But I heard the wolf howl—I'm quite sure of that. That and the fact that you can't repeat the past…and right now, that's just fine; I can't imagine going back.