The Furious Spinner

Been going this way and yon. Too raw to speak of it all. Trying to find the quiet. Yesterday I took the bandage off Mario's incision. Four stitches near his elbow. The healing wound reminded me of the stitches on Frankenstein's monster. Crosses holding the skin together. Beautiful, really, how the body heals. Still, I don't like to see my sweetheart cut or hurt. An oval of yellow bruising surrounded the incision. I wanted to kiss it, but I didn't.

I drove to Portland to listen to a monk talk about dream meditation and Bon shamanism. I was more interested in the shamanism, but no one had told the monk he was supposed to talk about it, so he didn't. I left before it was over after I looked up and the roof spun. A touch of vertigo to remind me all was not balanced? I drove home. Spent most of the night on the couch trying to keep the world from spinning.

Today on the way home from an appointment in Portland, we stopped at Eagle Creek to see if the salmon were running. It has been raining for days now so the rivers and creeks are finally passable for the fish. I put on my tall rubber boots, waded into the Creek, and stood with the salmon. Rain fell. A kingfisher flew overhead. In the clear water, salmon moved. Crypt-keeper salmon. Night of the Living Dead salmon. If one had that mindset. It's sad and beautiful watching these beautiful and decrepit creatures doing what comes naturally: spawning.

Last time I waded with the fish, in the fall of 2003, I wrote this: Later, Mario and I drove to Eagle Creek to take a quick hike in the break in the storm. It was cold and windy. I remembered walking here just three weeks ago when it was still in the 70's and huge yellow leaves drifted from the vine maples with each gust of wind, cluttering the path like falling stars, sizzling with beauty as they settled into the earth and became part of a colorful mosaic for our feet. Mario and I had watched the sweet light make its way through the autumn-colored trees and mist that rose like frosty exhales from the giant Douglas firs: we were speechless.

That day, we stopped at the creek and watched the salmon struggling to get upstream to spawn, their bodies blood-colored, undulating with determination to go up, up, up. Sometimes they leapt into the air, and they were all motion and stillness at the same time, and my knees weakened to witness the beauty of it all.

That same warm week, I returned to Eagle Creek alone, carrying brand new rubber boots I had bought at the hardware store in town. I walked carefully down to the creek near where the salmon were spawning. I started to step into the water when I noticed these rose-colored beads at the river's edge. Bus loads of children had been here each time we visited, so I thought someone's necklace had broken, and the beads had fallen into the clear cold water. I crouched closer to the water. Or were they pieces of candy? They were different colors. Rose. Pink. Light orange. And so perfectly round. Exquisite. Gems. I wished I had a necklace made out of them. Some were salmon-colored. Maybe even most of them.

Salmon-colored? Wait a minute. I stood and looked into the middle of the creek. These salmon- and rose-colored pearls were scattered all over the creek bed. They were salmon eggs! Wow. Watching my step, I went into the shallow water. After a few feet, I stopped and watched the salmon all around me. Most now were white and red, raggedy, falling apart after their long journey. One salmon swam up next to me. Part of her flesh was falling off of her tail, and I could see her tail bones. Another fish, about a foot from me, kept turning on her side and wiggling. After she did this, another salmon came and undulated over where the first salmon had been. I assumed I was witnessing the laying and fertilizing of the salmon eggs which would lay at the bottom of the creek, some to become food for other creatures, some to become salmon fingerlings in the spring.

As I stood in the water amongst these sacred creatures, I wondered if I was one of the returning salmon, on my last fin, so to speak, or one of those pearls of wisdom on the sandy bottom of the creek waiting for a new beginning. Were we all ending and beginning constantly?

No eggs today. The cold water around my boots made my teeth chatter. I reached for Mario's hand, and we walked back to the car. I always find it so moving to see these fish. I pray to the salmon when I eat it. Such tenacity. We should all be so lucky to have that kind of drive to bring ourselves to fruition. To become ourselves wholly. Holy.

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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.