From the Back of the Boat—The Reentry Blues
I never knew there was a name
for it. I never knew anyone else felt the same bitter sweet pain—of
loving my river home and the red rocks so much, that each leaving carved
a huge hole in me.
As the Whale Foundation has evolved, I’ve been privileged to hear
from some of you who also have Canyon red for blood. I feel relief I’m
not the only one who feels torn away from the vital river world, to be
thrust back into the busy tumult, with no time for dreaming or just being.
I now know the word for that yearning—reentry. Reentry means we
have to brace against the moment when the gear truck turns away from the
river corridor and sighing, we adjust to a different, faster current.
These are the dues we pay for being embraced by that vast, unique universe
that others can only dream of and may never know. Listen as Katie Lee
eloquently writes about that switch we have to flip in order to rejoin
the up-top world:
“You will never be homesick until you have a home. You will not
suffer ‘reentry syndrome’—until you’ve been out
of this world. Until you have touched, seen, become a part of the Other
World, heard its call, and felt the magnetic pull to go back out of this
world and return to Nature’s.”
Reentry takes many forms, its pulse not the same in each individual, but
the greatest manifestation of this syndrome won’t be denied—Frustration.
The frustration of not being able to explain the Other World to someone
who hasn’t been there. Where one person will feel ostracized by
this disconnection, another will feel aloof and pleased. Some will be
angry, some joyous, others thwarted and disgusted with the world they
live and work in. Some even feel guilty for having experienced what the
others have not and cannot share.
At times that makes me feel like the most fortunate human being on this
earth—at other times, the most devastated.
We Riverphiles are plagued as soon as we leave the sounds of a living
river behind.
Brad Dimock, co-author of The Doing of the Thing says, “For many
of us, reentry is the hardest and most disturbing part of the river experience.
Having just recently discovered (or rediscovered) an entirely different
world, it is wrenchingly difficult to leave it, to return to the so-called
real world. Which, one wonders is the real world after all?
The more one comes to know and love the river and the solace it brings
to the soul, the more miserable reentry can be. Those of us who spend
our lives on the River experience the symptoms on an even greater scale.
The end-of-season blues can be devastating, the worst of all is the time
when a boatman must leave the river for family, health or fortune.
Many of us never fully reenter,
but live out our lives trapped in some limbo, torn between the pain of
parting from the River, and the joy and vision it has given us to carry
through life.” Adam Stern of Glen Canyon Institute, noted a particularly
difficult reentry from the Green River: “The first visit was breathtaking,
the return visit was breathgiving. But by the time I approached the airport,
I felt like my spirit was being squeezed into a snug piece of Tupperware
after it had just spent a week expanding in the sun. Sad, because I felt
like I was giving up the week’s gains.
In retrospect, however, I think the long term benefits justify the pain
of reentry. That’s why we return to sacred spaces. The trials and
scares we encountering the wild, as well as the awe, are Good. The experience
of living in the real world (nature’s) as opposed to the human construct
grants the ability to separate real problems in your life from imagined
ones. This provided perspective to get on with the task of living, if
you’re enough, or to humbly accept your failings if you’re
not—Reentry demands a physical return to rank and utter bullshit
(comfort of home excepted) but with a spirit strengthened, wizened by
the experience, more equipped for living—maybe.”
Katie gently reminds us to “Step lightly. When your friends have
just come off the river or a wilderness hike, give them space—try
not to ask serious questions, or have them concentrate on a problem-they’re
still ‘out there,’ not at all ready for this brain-battering,
rivet machine we live in and must deal with. Quite likely they are wishing
they were not here with you at all.”
Reentry may be the cost we all share in being allowed to experience a
unique world others can only dream of, and may never have. It is real,
but so is the beauty we have gathered within to replenish ourselves with
memories, pictures and camaraderie—until we’re again, in our
canyon world. Let us know if you want to talk about the transition, we
will hear you.
Sandy Nevills Reiff
the Whale Foundation
(See Katie’s entire article in Mountain Gazette, No. 86, and in
a forthcoming book of river essays. The Whale Foundation is dedicated
to supporting the well being of the Grand Canyon guiding community with
mental, physical, spiritual and future planning professionals.)
