Accepting Impermanence

Strapped to the woman’s back — head bobbing slightly to one side, peacefully dozing in the sun and the shade of the canyon, and the soft rush of water as it pours down the rocky creek bed — is a child. A child with dark eyes that round with wonder so often at the newness of the world, because she is actually seeing all of this for the first time. Eyes that still flutter to sleep so easily, because letting in all of this beauty is exhausting.

The woman and the child are alone in the canyon except for the canyon wren, which sends its call down from the high cliff walls, and for the small beings that rustle and rustle in the undergrowth. The woman does not know what exactly they are: chickadees, perhaps small rodents. Either way she likes the company. Her hiking boots crick on the sandy trail. She notices that she is much more careful with her footing now. The metal and canvas backpack creaks a little when the woman eases herself down long steps, or when the child shifts; her legs are beginning to hang lower over the sides of the pack.

The world greets these two in reds—the canyon, and greens—the creek banks thick with trees. It’s early autumn and the sun shines with a golden slant. It’s warm but the mornings have begun to promise coolness. The woman feels there is no possibility that the day could be any more perfect. She has this canyon and the sun; she has her child strapped to her own straight and strong body.

She and the child arrive at an overhang in the rock. The National Park Service has erected signs to announce its significance—they’ve named this place the “Deluge Shelter.” The signs inform the woman that archeologists believe early people passing through this canyon used this spot to get out of the rain. She knows how heavy rains can be in the desert, especially in late July when the heat builds up the storm clouds, when the dry air becomes heavy with moist expectation, and finally thunder cracks and rain pours forth. She is glad today is sunny.

The woman imagines arriving at this spot with her child with a different kind of knowledge. She knows that no matter how wet or cold she and the child get, a car with a heater is only an hour hike away. She knows a warm shower is only another hour of driving. But other women of another time would know something quite different. She wonders how the other women felt when they traversed these canyon trails, carrying their own children; whether the children felt dearer because death was more of a possibility.

The woman senses the cold finger of fear rise up and travel along her spine from lower back to the nape of her neck. She feels the now familiar tingle along the bottom of her jaw line. The sensation is new since the child.

She feels the child stirring now, swinging her legs which hang out of the backpack. So the woman takes off the pack, allowing the child to get down and totter around on the sandy trail. The canyon walls streaked with black desert varnish rise sheer above them.

Pictures painted on the red rock display themselves on the canyon wall. The Park Service has put up a barrier in hopes of keeping the pictures from being vandalized. A spiral sun, a man with a square body and triangle head, a square-bodied animal with curving horns—a big horn sheep. Why were these images important? The woman thinks of the pictures she draws for her own daughter. Already the child recognizes a spiral; the idea of circling back while expanding is sacred to the woman and she draws the shape on the child’s papers regularly. Soon the child will draw her own spirals. What did this square man represent? What about the sheep? The woman wants to trace the curve of the horns with her finger, but she respects the Park Service barrier. She understands the hope of permanence.

How long through history had women stood where she stands while their children tottered in the sand? How many hunkered under the overhang holding their children close to keep them dry? The Park signs say archeologists have found pottery and grinding tools here. The woman thinks of her and her daughter’s breakfast of oatmeal flavored with almonds and raisins. She sits down on a low stone, suddenly overwhelmed. In this moment she feels the tie binding her through the centuries to all the mothers who have inhabited this place. It is a strange and exhilarating pull; the grandmothers reaching through time, joining her to them.

What does the child feel? As usual she simply appears amazed to be in this bright and colorful moment. The woman realizes that all children have felt this way. But she has been a child herself, and is not a stranger to amazement. It is the terror of motherhood she wants to learn about.

A child pares you to essentials. It gets hungry, you feed it. It gets cold, you cover it. Each breath she takes reminds you of how much you have to miss if she is gone. But life has always done that and you’d forgotten. Each time you see the white path of the full moon in the lake water, or realize the aspen trunks appear chalky against the snow, or hear the far, sad cry of the passing cranes. You’ve always known how much there is to miss in this world. The terror is knowing how much you want to hold on to what cannot be held on to. How could you ever leave this river? This shaft of sunlight warming your sandaled feet? And this child with her dark hair plastered to one side of her face where she fell asleep?

Here in the canyon something has happened. Despite the closer presence of death, another woman performed mundane tasks here, grinding grain, finding food, waiting out a storm. Even after she dropped what she was doing to watch the heartbreaking beauty of her child, dancing in the golden autumn sunlight, knowing the moment was even more fleeting than the quick brush of colors in the aspen leaves before they fell for winter. Even after this, she was able to pick up her tools and keep living.

-Jamie Barber was born in rural northeastern Utah. She currently resides in central Pennsylvania where she is finishing up her MFA in creative nonfiction at Penn State University.