COSMIC CONNECTIONS

Some things have happened to me that I can’t explain. Things that make me wonder if unexplainable cosmic connections can exist between people.

It’s about my friend, Adam, a Colorado River boatman. I met him guiding our raft through the Grand Canyon a few years back. We bonded, despite the fact that I am a tad bit older (27 years, in fact). Last June, I worked as his crew (called a swamper) on a similar raft trip (see Swamping the Grand Canyon).

Today, I drove in to the riverwalk in Eugene, where one of those cosmic things happened to me. It was a lovely day of March sunshine for my walk, but I wasn’t feeling it. My funk had to do with having just left a maddening encounter with our cell phone company.

So I was a bit mopey. Sitting in my car in the parking lot, I discovered a chocolate Tootsie Pop buried in the console. A common trail treat for rafters while hiking in the Grand Canyon, this was the last holdout from a handful I’d absconded with, after my swamper adventure with Adam eight months ago. I stuffed the sucker in my jacket, figuring I could take a selfie with it, somewhere along the river, and send it to him.

I found a nice overlook with snow-blanketed mountains in the background. I waited for breaks, as other walkers passed, since I always feel stupid taking a selfie with people watching. Especially when I’m alone and holding up a chocolate Tootsie Pop while grinning in the sunshine. But I got my shot and stuck it in an email to Adam, typing the subject, “Look what I found.” As my finger rested over the Send button, the phone dinged with an arriving email.

A few days back, I had sent Adam an email, asking a question about our upcoming trip, but hadn’t heard back. The instant my phone dinged, I said to myself, “It’s from Adam.” I cancelled the email I was about to send him and opened my inbox. Sure enough. There it was, Adam’s reply to my question from a few days earlier.

I replied and sent him my selfie with the chocolate Tootsie Pop, but spared him these details about the timing, since it had left me scratching my head with questions. Like, WTF?

A coincidence? Here’s what makes me wonder: Once before, almost the same thing happened at exactly the same spot.

It was a year ago from last December. I had arrived at that same riverwalk parking lot in Eugene. The endless winter rains had let up for my walk, but I wasn’t feeling it that day, either. I sat in my car, staring at the gray river and landscape. My phone dinged. It was a text from Adam, which surprised me since he’s not a fan of texting. The message asked, “Where were you 6 months ago?”

His accompanying picture answered his question. There I was, six months ago to the day; communing with Nature in the Grand Canyon; high (yes) above the Colorado River; ankle-deep in crystal-clear, ice-cold water; sun in my face; mesmerized by a waterfall in Deer Creek Canyon. It’s a scary hike along cliffs to reach an Eden of gurgling water, cooling shade, and Native American petroglyphs. Alone and just upstream from that desert oasis, I found this small waterfall, bordered by deep-green plants with blood-red roots dangling in the current. Dragonflies, golden as if touched by Midas, buzzed about in the mist. I traced their flights with an outstretched finger, trying to entice one to land.

The thought crossed my mind at the time that I must look like a deranged orchestra conductor, waving an invisible baton to the music of my private symphony. Which I guess I was. But thankfully, for a few precious minutes I’d been able to have this transcendent experience alone, out of sight of the other rafters. Or so I thought. Apparently, Adam had climbed overlooking rocks to memorialize my transcendent moment. 

I need to tell you one other thing about my connection to Deer Creek. Since my first hike up its slot canyon, several years and rafting trips ago (see The Death March), I’ve associated this special place with a particular song – “Arizona,” by Benjie Howard. Like Adam, he’s a Grand Canyon river guide. He sings of the visage of the world of a Native American elder, “not the last freedom fighter, not the last of the resisters.” I’ve listened to his song on headphones while hiking up the cliffs to Deer Creek: “Whose country is this, anyway, now?” (You can watch a video here of Benjie playing his song, deep in another Grand Canyon side canyon.)

Back in Eugene on the riverwalk that day, I stared at Adam’s picture of me at Deer Creek for long minutes. When I got out of the car for my walk, thinking about that blissful moment a half-year ago, my spirits lifted. For my headphone-walking music, I picked my Grand Canyon Playlist – sixty or so songs I’d listened to while rafting through the Grand Canyon.

I hit “shuffle” and stepped onto the sidewalk. The first random tune started – guitar strings. It was Benjie Howard’s “Arizona.” My Deer Creek song.

“Oh, Arizona, de Maria, queen of hidden little springs;

from the Catalina Range up to Sedona;
yeah, Nankoweap, you make my heart sing.”

 Again, like, WTF? More coincidence? 

Do these kind of things happen to everyone? Do people sometimes really have unexplainable cosmic connections? 

"Here, hold my beer."

Swamper & Boatman
Grand Canyon - June 2018

I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in the paranormal. Or visiting aliens, or the Deep State, or Bigfoot, or God. Still, coincidences can feel spooky. And besides, I know that we don’t know what we don’t know. Such a paradox!

I also know that there is no better place to contemplate such cosmic braintwisters  than inside the Grand Canyon. Eva and I will be back there on another eight-day raft trip with Adam this summer. If we find any answers, I’ll let you know. 

~ ~ ~

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THE LICK OF DEATH

The old man looked up from his black cane, scowled, and resumed his shuffle, failing to return my cheery “Good morning!” A depressing start to my morning walk. Oregon’s damp, gray winter – I don’t mind so much. Grumpiness is another matter. 

I shook off my funk just in time to confront another walker coming my way, this time with two free-roaming, pit-bull-type dogs. I eyed their formidable necks, bedecked in matching bandanas, as they surrounded me, and raised my arms out of easy-to-taste range.

“They’ll just lick you to death,” the old coot in a red-and-black-checkered jacket announced. The thought crossed my mind, “In what universe do you think I would want these gross animals to lick me to death?” But I kept my mouth shut and didn’t even glance at the guy as we passed. “Have a nice day,” he sneered after me. 

Dog people assume, mistakenly in my case, that everyone loves dogs. Especially their dogs. “Oh, he won’t bite.” Or, “She just wants to say hello.” Or, perhaps my favorite, “Trust me, they’re friendly.” These are the kind of lame excuses I hear as their precious Rottweiler sniffs my leg and decides whether to pee on it or nip a sample from my crotch.

Sometimes their little darlings will trot along obediently until I pass, then, their human’s attention elsewhere, tear off towards me. Or simply turn back and give me a look that says, “I could tear your throat out, you know.”

There really is a thing called the Lick of Death. A nasty bacteria, Capnocytophaga canimorsus, can live in dogs’ mouths. It’s an infection that, for the human lickee, can result in amputations and death. Yours, not the dog’s.

You can be cruising along in life, dum-de-dum, everything seeming fine, and BAM! Out-of-the-blue, a dog licks you on the mouth and before you know it you’re dead. 

I’ll admit it’s a long shot, but why take chances? There are enough risks without dog spit. A metaphorical “lick of death” can come from anywhere, not just from a dog. Car accident. Cancer. Parkinson’s. Heart attack. BAM! And your world turns upside down. It happens to everyone, sooner or later, and you don't get to pick the time or place. On the other hand, if you could pick the time and place, how would you choose? 

The writer, David Sedaris, in his essay, “Father Time,” bemoans the fate of growing old: “I can’t predict what’s waiting for us, lurking on the other side of our late middle age, but I know it can’t be good.” 

No doubt, there are downsides to growing old. Death, for example. And AARP solicitations. I am, however, fond of the old saw, “Any day upright is a good day.” Everything is relative and there are always worse alternatives, people who give you perspective, who make your own station in life look blessed.

When I got back from my walk to my car in the Walmart parking lot, a truck driver pushing a shopping cart back to his big-rig stopped next to my open window. “Do you know of a dog park around here?” 

His cart was filled with bags of dog food, cat food, and kitty litter. He said he had two big dogs and three cats living in his truck cab with him. He’d had a beaver, too, but had to get rid of it because “it got really mean.” He was hauling stage equipment to San Francisco for a Grateful Dead concert. Him and his menagerie, traveling together because his California house had burned down in the Paradise wildfire, and he had two more weeks before he could get into another place. I was going to warn him about his dogs and what I’d learned about the Lick of Death, but figured he had enough to worry about. I felt bad that I couldn’t at least direct him to a dog park.