On that particular hot afternoon, the alternative no longer appealed to me. The route I had always chosen, the safe, more traveled road was not to be my choice on that sunny day in June. The river was braided and islands appeared. The boat and all the others followed the main channel. I think back now on that day and realize how powerful this single decision was as a metaphor to my whole life change.
Had I not been a distance runner, the outcome on that fateful day may have been different. Running had always been an important aspect of my life. Even as a youngster, running was my main means of transportation. Living in small rural farming communities, cars, even bicycles were not routinely available to us school-aged children. Our feet, legs and love for physical exercise led us to use what was so easily accessible to us, ourselves, to propel us to a certain destination. This love of running to particular spots, soon turned into an enjoyment all its own. I no longer looked at arriving at a place as the reason for running, I realized that running had become an integral part of my whole being. I loved running for running sake.
I mention the running part of my life because it was the single most important element that led to the shaping of my future life. I once read a wonderful statement by George Sheehan, the runner/writer. He began to run at age 45, and likened the change to jumping off a train...ñat the age of 45, I pulled the emergency cord and ran out into the world. It was a decision that meant no less that a new life, a new course, a new destination. I was born again in my 45th yearî. He made the same decision about leaving normalcy behind and moving in the direction that balloons usually travel.
Although I ran, I had long ago lost my purpose, my sense of direction, my caring for creation. No matter how hard I tried to make my balloon go up, it was being constantly pulled down by the baggage of a dead marriage. Yet is was running that brought me to him. He was a neighbor, who, like me, loved to feel the wind rush by. He, too, was trying to find his way, lost in apathy and rejection. It was truly love at first sight. Now there were two balloons going up, two who prepared to jump from the train we had once chosen. We ran together, dreamed together, and loved together. I had begun my path toward another existence. I jumped from that train of mundanea. I became a new me.
On that particular day in June, we were floating down the McKenzie River. Rivers because of their cyclical, spiritual nature had become another love for me. I had always sat and found solace in looking at the perpetual motion of a flowing stream, river or ocean movements. Siddartha spoke about the river as a manifestation of life. Water vapor rises from the oceans, rain clouds form over the mountains, precipitation drops, trickles of water form streams that become rivers, and eventually they flow to great waters where whales make their homes. And then the cycle repeats itself.
One such river, the Metolius River, became a symbol of our new found love. This particular river springs, instead, into full life from the ground in Central Oregon and makes its way through some calm waters but also some very challenging torrents as it courses its way to the seas. The symbolism became apparent. We married there.
That hot June afternoon, floating the McKenzie accompanied by all of those who represented both past, present, and future, old and new, possible and impossible, I made a split- second decision to ride my inner tube toward an uncharted course of water. Rains from winter storms had transformed a rather tranquil section of the McKenzie into a snarling mass of tangled branches and whirlpools that were unsurpassable by boat. I, preparing to jump from the train, made the only decision possible at that moment. I chose the branch of the river everyone yelled and screamed at me to avoid. My conditioning, due to running, made it possible for me to claw and tear myself free from the branches that trapped me under a log. I nearly drowned that day and still sometimes feel I am having to tread way too hard, but I am surviving the new path I found when I jumped from the train, just as I did choosing that course of the river. I am living the existence very few of us will ever have the opportunity to live, let alone know. I have fallen in love, and that has made all the difference.