River frigid
White sand burning
Splash rapid splash
Better than Disneyland
The opposite of a cruise
The making of new friends:
Gluten-free friends
Reading and movie friends
Young, fit and drop dead gorgeous friends
Medicare friends
Ehlers-Danlos friends
Dysfunctional family friends
River, always the river
Mountains
Stars
Clouds
Convection oven heat
Jared says hair dryer breeze
The bugs and bites
The bee stings
The hairy-legged spider who could jump and swim and was pregnant and wanted to bite
all of us
The stern sun
And then eventually the soft rain
Ancient Ones nodded our direction as we honored the Blue Canyon
Flute music weaved through our souls
Eagles and otters and curly horned sheep and catfish and chuckers and pike and
breaching sturgeon
And bass, so many bass
The kayak rescue
The sharing of wine and chocolate and hydrocortisone cream
The stories of young romance from decades ago shared by those mature ones, still
holding hands
But the rapids
The yelp, the thrill, the rush,
the surge, the danger, the beauty,
the lost in the wave moment
just you and the white wave
experienced in community
in this shared occurrence of joy
makes you and I one
the river makes us one
so we are all one
Janet Cain 2024
Janet Cain is a mental health professional who writes on Substack @The Turning, exploring the interface of faith in Unconditional Divine Love and mental health. She lives in the Willamette Valley in Oregon with her spouse, Mr Wonderful.
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