River Widow

You’ve all heard and memorized the stories of the first, brave boatmen on Grand Canyon, as well as the stories of yourselves, the strong men and gutsy women who’ve followed in their footsteps. But you might be interested to listen for a moment to the perspective of another group who’s involved in the guiding life, if only from a distance—the wives, the girlfriends, the lovers, the “significant others,” left behind entire months of the year—the river widows.
“River widow” sounds so sad. The “wife at home,” and the “girlfriend” sounds possessive, somehow. We seem like a quiet, brooding group. And while we’re definitely not a bunch of pining wimps (we don’t use up a box of Kleenex every time our men leave), we do dampen the sleeve of our shirts sometimes, as you drive off in your trucks with your oars on top and your ammo cans rattling. We do slam the door on the way into the house. We’re angry and jealous and want to tell you a few things, but aren’t sure how to start.
First of all, don’t take this news wrong; just listen and learn something. Know that we love you, and that we love your love for the River. We like that gentle part of you, your tie to the earth and to something spiritual. We like how your eyes sort of glaze over when you’re on the river, staring at the red cliffs and sunset. We imagine you must be thinking something profound and poetic, and your quietness makes us sure. We like that you know how to cook, can talk about plants and rocks and politics, and we like that you’re good with people. We love that you love the River but we still have trouble feeling content when you go, for a number of reasons. For example:
You don’t call. The fact that you can’t call doesn’t remedy this problem. You need to be aware that we can still feel you not calling and that emotion knows no excuses. We think you don’t care. If you think about us, we don’t know it, so we assume otherwise.
You don’t write. The fact that you can only mail a letter at Phantom Ranch and we wouldn’t get it until after you get back doesn’t remedy this problem. We can feel you not writing and that emotion knows no excuses. See above.
You are with other women. The fact that you are faithful and true and (perhaps) not even attracted to either the boatwomen or the clients doesn’t remedy this problem. We can feel you having experiences with other women and that emotion knows no excuses. We imagine them with their shirts off on the beach, arching their backs and tossing their hair in the sun, warming their goosebumped, tanning skin from a day in the rapids, bathing away the dirt while you make peach cobbler in the Dutch oven. We imagine them admiring you—the guide—how hard admiration is to ignore and how full of intensity becomes the friendship that has an inevitable time limit. We may imagine “things” happening. More importantly and seriously, we imagine you spending quality time in a beautiful place with some faceless, (okay, also topless) person.

And the images grow and morph and paint themselves in all the colors of our insecurity because you don’t call or write to reassure us otherwise.
(I have to interrupt this tirade to also admit that I have no idea what the experience is like for men whose girlfriends or wives are guides, who leave them behind on the doorstep for repeated weeks at a time. Is their experience even harder? Are their ever-transforming images even more vivid? Or do their minds have a way of staying grounded somehow? Someone else will have to write about that…)
Whoever we are, left back home, we go to work (or take care of kids, or keep the business going), pay bills, keep track of our 401k, drive in traffic, eat at the desk, watch the news, go to sleep cold, and don’t understand why our lives have to be so lame and boring and stressful all at once while you actually get that excited, giddy, adventurous look on your face when you’re heading off to do what you do for a living. We are unspeakably jealous. And while some of us become guides ourselves because we don’t like that feeling and know we belong on the river too, others of us know being a river guide isn’t our calling. We aren’t actually sure what our calling is; no one has called us yet. So we go through a major life assessment every time we wave you goodbye.
We live for a couple days or weeks in this mode, this craziness, and you never have any idea we go through it. But irony rules the world. Thus, the very day you are scheduled to get off the river, sometimes even the day before that, we get used to you being gone. We have just gone out for a drink with friends and are barely in the door, when you call.
“Hey! I’m off the river! I wanted to call you first thing! How are you?”
“Fine, great, really. I’m surprised, though; I thought you got off tomorrow.”

Karla Miller