The river runs through me

Have you ever dreamt of being alone on an island with the sun shining on you while holding your favorite book? It happened to me today, and I had Hemingway.

I put the kayak in north of Bismarck. It was my first trip down river, past places I'd been many times in a boat.

Things look a lot different close to the water. You feel bigger and smaller at the same time. Bigger for experiencing nature in this way, smaller for realizing the world is a big place and you're one wave away from swimming in current. It is good to feel small, a minuscule part of something so sweepingly beautiful. It's like the sand on my favorite beach north of where the Heart flows into the Missouri, one speck in a trillion. When I fall into its luxury I scoop up handfuls of it and let it fall back down, my fists forming a human hourglass.

My maiden journey reminded me a little of the Old Man and the Sea, I hooked to some great fish leading me away. "Take me somewhere," I thought about the kayak. "I want to see things I've never seen, I want to feel things I've never felt."

The word harmony is on the end of our paddle. I loved that there was no noisy, smoking engine. I could hear the kayak cut into the river as it moved forward, the trickles of water off the oar. Nothing interfered with the bird songs or the whispering wind.

A half hour after I started, I stopped at a sandbar in the middle of the river. The cool water was welcome relief from the heat. I sat down in it and splashed it up on my face and back. I drenched my hair. I watched some boats go by and I tried to remember the paths they took. When I cooled down, I circled the small island, maybe 35 yards long. The rippled sand felt good underfoot. I found a dry spot in the middle and, using my life jacket as a pillow, opened For Whom the Bell Tolls. Robert Jordan is planning the bridge attack during the Spanish Revolution. He has a trusted friend in Anselmo. He is in love with a perfectly imperfect woman, and a great snowstorm has struck. All this from an isolated island in the middle of the Missouri River on a 90 degree day near Bismarck, North Dakota.

I return to the water along the east shore. Two guys ask me where I started. "Up north near Double Ditch," I tell them. "That's a good day," they reply in stereo, raising their Mountain Dew bottles to toast my adventure.

I am told for a peaceful voyage to stay away from the main channel and take the shallow, narrow tributary-like route behind Christmas Tree Island. It is good advice. For maybe two miles I oar and stop and float and oar and stop and listen. The sun beats down on my brown arms. I see a bald eagle. There are many switchbacks and I learn to read shallow water along the way.

There's Grant Marsh bridge. A couple dozen people are walking up onto the riverboat. Above, traffic races both east and west along I-94.

The kayak gracefully turns the corner from the main river channel to the boat ramp. I wonder what people think of me. Perhaps I started in Montana, a man with a gypsy heart and a book and somewhere to go. Or maybe they think I'm crazy, or brave, or out of place.

With the vessel loaded onto my shoulder, I walk up to a park bench. I stretch out and read more pages. Candace pulls up with the pickup. She brings refreshing cold peaches and a half can of Diet Coke.

It is good to be on my way home, yet still I think of the river.