They throw their scarlet bodies over rocks and through currents. They arch and shake to hold their place in the cold water that rushes, rushes.
Their every scale quakes and burns with the struggle upstream.
And the river is filled with flames.
Evidence of brothers and sisters who exhausted themselves or made tragic wrong turns sprinkle the rocks, bodies bleached by sun and night cold.
My heart thumps with the beautiful and the horrible of their grueling journey, and I cannot stop watching the kokanee salmon.
One fish seems to hold back water for another to leap and washes downstream. A smaller one thrusts, pushes and catches wrong currents, and I wonder how long he can continue.
A bright red fish moves into a calm spot that another struggles to fill, and the slow one falls back, back, back.
That September weekend, my dear friend and I cry at the mass migration up Wallowa River to the lake.
We understand.
Their every movement echoes the humming inside our own fragile bodies. This humanity collective:
Survive.
Live.
Don’t give up fighting.
I sit on the bank and watch scaled forms take on legs and arms.
I think of the brutal struggle and those who don’t make it. The sick and anguished. The boy from high school who always smiled, who hung himself in his garage.
I see faces of friends, family, teachers. Times they held back current for me. Days nothing I tried worked, when I questioned what I believed, who I was, and they held the space.
I think of my prayer friends and our Friday mornings and coffee and tears, confession and deep honest. I remember the alone and undone and how they sat at my feet, held tight to me and prayed, reminded me of who I am, pushed me upstream.
I think of my sister, eyes knowing what no one else can and understanding with no words and a fierce, scarlet love for each other and each other’s.
I think of my husband, and his hands and his gaze, loving with no maybes, taking the current for me.
I think of my mother-in-law and her quiet, steady, unasking love, and how that moves me to love better. Keep going.
I think of my mama and papa, encouragers and lovers of my soul, telling me I can do anything. Feel, love, dream. Don’t ever give up.
I think of my high school girlfriends and our annual weekends away and the sharing of sorrows and all the eating and walking arms linked and watching Oscars in piles on the floor and couch. How my cheeks hurt from the smiling and laughter and how good it feels to be known by people since you were a kid.
I think how just one year ago I felt safe enough to read aloud what I’d been writing, and they cheered me on and helped open me to possibilities. Pushed me upstream.
I think of ones who pulled me down, mostly without intending, who crushed parts of dreams. Ones who crossed my section of the stream for a time and washed away to a place I cannot see.
The water keeps right on rushing, and it is cold, and it is hard.
And the sun shines overhead.
We flesh struggle, and we pour everything into holding our place, and we ready ourselves to throw and thrust, and sometimes we think we swim upstream alone.
We are all flaming red, pulsing with horrible and beautiful life.
Hearts thumping, LIVE.
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
This piece is so beautiful, so wise. How grateful and blessed we are to have those who will “take the current” for us when we don’t have the strength on our own. This imagery is powerful sis. Love you so!
And by the way, thank you for taking my current more times than I can count. There aren’t “other fish in the sea”, as far as im concerned—You are the best big sister in for me!!
And thank you for holding back the water for me. I am so grateful for you.
Thank you, Sis. I love you!
This brought tears to my eyes. Your powerful metaphor punches the gut. You express personal pain and anguish, and ultimately hope with such grace. Your struggle resonates, makes me think of some of my own While swimming upstream will tire, the drive to ‘never give up’ will fire us to continue. thank you so much for such brave and beautiful frankness!
Your words make me think of one of your favorite songs — “I Will Survive.” Thank you for sharing the emotion you experienced in reading, Papa. Love you!
Ashley, you summed up life so introspectively on our “journey toward heaven”. I will read this again during those times when it is so easy to lose perspective. Thank you – such wisdom!
Yes, Deb, I love that idea of the lake at the end of this journey being heaven. You’re right, it is so hard to maintain perspective about the end point when the conditions on our way there can be so hard. Thank you, Deb.
this is a wonderful piece. thanks so much.
Thank you so much, Maria.
Ashley! I hardly know what to say. maybe that’s a clue to say nothing at all. Usually it is. But …
It’s so beautiful to me that you put yourself in the flaming bodies of those kokanees… you imagined, to the point of feeling in your own body, their anguished struggle. You and Angela, tender hearts both, cried for them in their final, agonizing fight to make it “home”. And then, like you do, you extrapolated a meaning profound and personal – and yet universal too. What exquisite writing Ashley. What powerful use of metaphor. There is something more at work here though – you speak a truth so unerringly wise and full of beauty that it makes me cry……….
And in all that, I failed to mention that I love your new (for now) header too!
Thank you. I’m liking it too. Seemed fitting for the Lenten season. Pale, yearning, tinged with hope.
Thank you, Mama. I hardly know what to say in return, but thank you for seeing and understanding.
Ashley, this is beautiful. You’ve captured it all so well. What a blessing to live life with you.
Thanks so much, Jen. I treasure you.
I love it when you write of your times in Wallowa County, and I’m so glad to see that it inspired you so well.
I think of a young woman of Joseph’s band sitting beside the water watching the endless kokanee on their endless journey to the lake. Seeing in their journey strong similarities to her life, too. The water keeps rolling and the kokanee keep running…
Hoping to hear more of your experiences in Northeast Oregon!
I do love that land and hope to return soon. There is something very meaningful about that place and, as you say, captivating about its timelessness. Thanks so much, Don.
So beautifully written & such a vivid illustration of our humanity…Thanks Ashley for so often taking my “current” and helping me move through things!
Thank you, Becca. It’s such a joy to walk — or swim — through life with you.
Ash
There is something so stirring and primal in the witnessing of the red migration.
It’s thrilling and saddening and so provocative. Love the images, thank you for the truth and hard won wisdom you’re sharing. Creaton and craft at work.
jt
This, Girl, is good! Love the image of others taking the current for us…So powerful…I’m thinking about that and those who have and do so for me. I’m from a family of fishing folks…But, I’ve never seen this in real life. I would love to…maybe if I get up your way some time, I will. Jeremy, my ( boss???) our youth pastor and our and dearest Alabama friend is enrolled at George Fox. He is finishing his doctoral program there this spring. He has dared some of us to come up to see him graduate and that part of Oregon. I am considering a doctoral program there as well. That would put me pretty close to you, wouldn’t it? Trent, my ecology studying son – fisheries are his thing, and I just might make good on that dare.
Yes, do, please come visit us in Oregon! We are in Portland. George Fox is less than an hour away. Our part of the state is absolutely gorgeous. An hour and a bit from the ocean, an hour plus from Mt. Hood. Then there’s the desert of Central Oregon. This post is centered around Wallowa Lake, which is in Eastern Oregon — a good five hours from us. But if you do come to Oregon, the visit to that part of the state would be so worth your trip. Oh my goodness, I would be thrilled to meet you in person! You could stay with us here in Portland. Out of curiosity, my auntie is in Huntsville, AL…how far are you from there? And, do tell, what doctoral program are you considering? That’s so exciting.
I would love to see you. Huntsville is only about 2 hours up 65 from us. (easy drive) We are just south of B’Ham in a lttle old town that is now a suburb – Helena. I would so drive up to say hello.
Looking at some program in Spiritual Formation. Jeremy and I wrote a book this last year on Spiritual Formation and Youth. Waiting on him to finish his Dissertation, then we will be push that to publishing.
I have 1 kiddo in school already, UAB, 3 more to send in the next 5 years…Yes, so what I need is to publish and sell the movie rights to something. I’m sure we will clear nothing on our labor of love. I have just the thing in the queue – it is CRAZY and true in traditional southern style. Just have to get a few things off the stack on my desk first to go after it.
I hope I am not wearing you out. I’ve made at least one fabulous friend ( IRL) a year in this writing thing. So, I forget that you may not have done so…sorry. Now, did you stumble upon Amber H. or are you related to her folks in AL? Got to ask. I read Amber’s stuff regularly for a long while…then I had to quit…it just made me hurt too much for home and all. But, some things have shifted and now, well I gulp it like just freezing in the neck of the bottle, Coca-Cola. I’m going to keep bouncing around here and getting to now you better. I’ll be commenting time to time. I’ll do my best not to strike up conversation and tell you a story about to everything you’ve written that I read. ( smile.) I am much quieter in real life.