3.

We were traveling down the river in a canoe that my grandfather had built. We canoed often. There was a spot where the river opened up into a pool and we would swim. The water slowed and the surrounding woods made the simple basin of water into a refuge. My parents loved it there. When they held each other in the cold water it was as if the forms of their bodies, with valleys and hills unique, were meant to be placed into the other, assembling a figure as natural and bold as the Rockies. If I stood on one particularly large rock by the edge of the water I could see the river continue on for miles, with violent rapids blocking our delicate exploration. I imagined a varicose vein on the landscape, carved out and defined by age, eventually reaching the coast and pouring itself into the Pacific Ocean, becoming part of something much larger. But I couldn’t see that far.