Spending the afternoon east of town at Rock Island - Immediately upon climbing up the main edifice that circles the swimming hole there I step knee-up into a hole the exact size of my leg. I bang up my shin properly and the egg-sized bruise rises in minutes. I shake it off because we've only just arrived and take the dive off of the cliff before I have time to think about it too much, up at the pouting lip of the flat rocks and down past the torrents arcing in their swathe, spiraling into the turquoise pool below with a sudden and resounding plunge. The pain has a sharp burn but the tone is reset when I resurface, leg trailing idly behind me as I tread water, spitting.
We climb downstream across scattered rock formations. They're cast upon each other like handfuls of mismatched dice as if the hand of God could reach down any moment to reclaim them. Hopping from toe to toe across boulders, sometimes deftly despite the occasional precarious rapids in between, we wind our way downhill with the current until the grotto, a massive granite slab leaned determined on its belly, but with just enough breathing room underneath where the waters rise and fall for four or five average-sized humans to well in the bubbles formed by the sudden halt of an otherwise rapidly-flowing stream. In our little hideout underground there someone produces a joint from a waterproof case and when we climb out to daylight again the water's exaggerated coolness melds with our day and situations in that particular way only marijuana can makes things blend together, and so quickly. I climb further on downstream as the others swim in a receding pool. I take my time, cautious though the climb grows easy. Up, up towards the side of the cliffs overlooking the valley where an outcropping of rock in the wall form a cave of sorts with a nice welcome draft and a dry patch on which I spread out momentarily. Below this promontory couples are languishing fondly and kids are eyeing a jump at the encouragement of their peers and everything seems perfectly in place with me, unnoticed in my cave and wet shoes surveying their actions alone. It's only now that I begin to acknowledge how curious this thing that I do has become, where I shut the world out in some kind of visceral fear, the very fear that led to my unlearning of intimacy somewhere downwind of where I currently am. I wrestle with myself, perplexed about allowing all things to simply be the way they are without stagnating my resolve in spite of it. I feel a long groan in the pit of myself lurching outward with a cold shudder. This profound loneliness, even in such a paradise surrounded by such devastating beauty and joy.
And there I am for however long until from somewhere down below I'm hailed because we have to start the trek back to the car in only minutes. So somehow in the haze I ramble my way back to the pool and meet it with eagerness, knowing this will be the last chance for a dip before our hike begins. I'm there, only skimming the surface of my whole deal for the entire jaunt home, feeling as if I cannot possibly dwell a moment longer on it while in the company of others, feeling as though I am obligated in some way to respond to banter in the homebound car while big green rolls by outside and the wind pumps my ears full of static and when I desire nothing more than to simply become one with it because its sound is emulated in the storm that brews behind my eyelids. Hopeful still of the evening fast encroaching, the summertime electricity passed between folks in their exchanges. There's a show my friends are putting on - free burritos if we run the door - an ever-promising suggestion in contrast with my default free-night plans of delving into my songs further at home where things are never calm enough. In my head everyone is there at the show already, patiently beckoning me out from my cave saying, "It's okay, don't take it all so seriously," though I know I won't be heeding their advice.
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