Right Here

...I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. (Jeremiah 2:2)

I was still very much in shock---still holding the positive pregnancy stick in my hand----when he asked me to marry him. Life changes in a flash----crossing the living room to answer the phone; a truck's wrong turn on a slippery road----but also with a little red line, and unexpected joy. We crossed the threshold, we stepped out into the wilderness. We didn't think about it (who does? who really does?) 

We didn't go to work and drove to the Nile (we were in Uganda) and had some champagne. The water of the Nile rushed past us, the big lovely river bending around the rocks where we sat. We were by a camp, the banks were patted down and the river accessible. The rushing water was very loud. It was a Tuesday and there were few people around (I don't remember any, in fact). It was warm; the sky was blue. Big old hawks did scary circles in the sky way up. He spent time trying to open the champagne in creative ways. Then he made work-related calls. I stared at the rushing water, dazed. We were suddenly poised on a moment, and though we didn't mention it, we sort of knew it. From here, after this sunny quiet day by the river, life was going to get a bit more complicated. 

I had rafted on that part of the Nile when I had first arrived in Uganda a few years previous and just thinking about it made me feel sick: I had no desire to raft ever again, ever, ever, ever in my life. Ever. I love gazing at water in any shape and form, but I am adverse to entering rushing, rocky, crocodile-infested water. I find no thrill in it at all. I don't trust the rafting company, I think it's a scam. I don't even really trust the world, if you must know. That day I spent rafting (interminable torture) I lived steeped in a stiff and cold dread. The others were cheering and wha-hooing but I spoke to no one. I was just getting through each moment, dreading the next.

Then the boat flipped, which they warned us it would do ("It's the best part! Wha hoo!"). I was tossed into the rapids and sucked into an air pocket of space, with a boulder over each shoulder that lifted the river so it rushed down above my face. I could breathe. I could look up and see water and the sunlight pouring through it, and I could think peacefully about this really disgusting way I was about to die. And then, I popped up as if the rafting company paid the river for this experience to make suer we got our money's worth. And I lived. I lived! The air felt good again.

Taking the leap out into the rushing water, crossing out into the wilderness, committing to a life together with a man I could hardly know because how can you hardly know another? That is what I'm talking about. A devotion that leads you into the wilderness. Its many perils, how could you ever know when you first stepped out? But then you live another day. Because, after all, we are still here, we are right here. 

 

Painting: "Right Here," oil on canvas (12" x 12") by Margaret Sweet (2010). For enquires write to margaretlsweet@gmail.com

Comments

[CD]

Good Stuff! and interesting! CD

[G]

beautiful stuff, Em, it never ceases to amaze me how you can draw out the poignancy of moments.

And yeah, don't ever go rafting in Africa again.