In an encounter in a coffee house of all places, Jeffe Aronson, whose distinguished career as a river guide spanned five decades, realizes the ultimate lesson of the river:
“I remember when it first hit me. I went for a coffee at Macy’s, someone saw my AzRA ballcap (Arizona Rating Adventures), started some small talk over a latte about the best goddam river trip on earth. Changed their lives it did, that river, that Canyon. Offhandedly I asked them who their guides were.
“‘Um, was there a Jim or something?’
“I asked them what company they went with. They couldn’t even remember that part.
“What they DID remember with the clarity of heavenly vision was The Canyon. The River. Our Colorado. The dawns and sunsets setting the cliffs on fire, the sound of moving water, the cool morning breeze before the Great Oppressor hit the beach, the smell of the wet desert after a summer monsoon, the coffee call echoing, the shrill buzz of the summer cicadas, the trill of the canyon wren.
“I’ll take that with me, put it in my pocket. It wasn’t about me, as much as I once needed to think it was.”
Jeffe’s essay, “Anywhere Else, I’m Something Less,” is excerpted in the current issue of Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry. To find out more, visit deepwildjournal.com
Deep Wild Journal 