{"id":13941,"date":"2017-09-27T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=13941"},"modified":"2017-10-03T09:23:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T16:23:55","slug":"momentary-migrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2017\/09\/27\/momentary-migrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Momentary Migrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

In late June I was sitting under a cottonwood tree on Havasu Creek, eleven days into another Colorado River trip through the Grand Canyon. Looking upstream: a pool on my left, not quite stagnant, teeming with the youngest of canyon-dwelling amphibians, a persistent cascade of aquamarine water on my right. Aesthetically, it was like a dream, like something from those middle school geography books, the pages full of photos from faraway places that aren\u2019t midwinter Alaska, places that aren\u2019t school, places too exotic and beautiful and warm to be real. But that day, it turned out, those places\u00a0were<\/em>\u00a0real.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Perched atop that rock beside me was a teenaged girl from Boulder, Colorado, but really from Uganda, but really from Rwanda. Her Rwandan mother had been dead for twelve years. Her new mother\u2014with her rock-climber body and bird-watching binoculars and Boulder-liberal politics\u2014brought Sonia to Arizona to go rafting in the Grand Canyon, quite possibly against her will. Sonia had a different outfit for almost every day on this two-week trip. I cycle through the same three pairs of faded river shorts, saving my nicest pair for days when we run big rapids. I bring three long-sleeve shirts on the trip. Sonia\u2019s seemingly bottomless bag of clean clothes made me self-conscious of my wardrobe for perhaps the first time in my career as a dirtbag river guide.<\/p>\n

She took time in the morning to wash her face, match shirts to hats, to feel pretty. (When I was a fledgling guide in the Utah desert, fresh out of Alaskan high school and sweating all the time, I used to sing that song from West Side Story, I Feel Pretty,<\/em>\u00a0as I stumbled between rafts tethered to tamarisk trees, searching in vain for dinnertime onions for the red-faced chef who glowered from the beach above.) Sonia explained that it\u2019s important to feel pretty. \u201cYou\u2019re looking good, you\u2019re feeling good,\u201d she said. It seemed logical enough.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sonia traded me French for Spanish. She\u2019d write\u00a0\u201cJe t\u2019aime ma cherie\u201d<\/em>\u00a0in my open journal; I\u2019d smile and tell her\u00a0\u201cTe quiero, tambi\u00e9n.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>When we hiked she showed me how to move over rocks with more grace than I usually can summon on my own. In stretches of flat water she struggled for brief stints to row my two thousand-pound raft and then lounged like royalty on the front of my boat, a black and blue sarong draped over her African skin. \u201cI\u2019m tanning so much harder than you right now. Catch up,\u201d she teased.<\/p>\n

As we sat on that cottonwood-shaded rock, she drew the tattoo from my right shin into her sketchbook: it\u2019s a dove on a wire, dangling a blank scroll from its toes. She said she wanted a tattoo someday, a waterfall maybe. \u201cHow do you draw a waterfall?\u201d I asked. Falling water all around us, we lay still on the rock, careful to keep our bodies in the shadows of the foliage, shifting slowly if at all.<\/p>\n