Sanctuary

The Guadalupe River was always there.

Always present, always in the background—the backdrop of every photo and memory.

In my small town, the roads ran alongside it, cutting back and forth across bridges and low-water crossings.

No matter where you went, it was on one side of you or the other.

Restaurants had large outdoor seating areas overlooking it.

From almost everywhere, you could hear it, smell it, and see it reflecting the sky back at itself.

It was my church.

My muse.

My confidant.

I spent at least twenty of my birthdays there.

My family—my husband, my children, my grandchildren—spent every Fourth of July on the river, often in our canoe in the middle of the inky black waters, watching bursts of color erupt in the sky and reflect on the water's surface all around us.

We were there for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day.

Baptisms, BBQs with family… with coworkers.

Birthdays, thespian inductions… and on and on.

My children learned to swim in the waters of the Guadalupe.

They learned to canoe there.

It was a teacher.

I formed my wedding palette around the fall foliage along its banks—bright reds, yellows, oranges, greens, and darker colors like rich plum and mustard.

The river was woven into every stage of my life: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, womanhood.

As a daughter, a mother, a grandmother.

I always had access to it.

So much so that I wonder if I ever considered life without it.

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On a still day, the surface was a mirror broken only by the occasional ripple from a lone fish breaching the water or the head of a turtle popping up.

Towering trees lined the banks—cypress, sycamore, pecan, elm, black willow, hackberry—their reflections doubling on the water's surface.

Enormous rolling hills rose behind them, jagged outcroppings of rock, fields of switchgrass littered with wildflowers: dandelions, Indian paintbrushes, Mexican hats, bluebonnets, buttercups, black-eyed Susans.

The sun's reflection like sequins where the breeze created ripples.

The water itself shifted colors depending on the sky—sometimes a flinty dark blue or grey, other times almost a deep teal.

The scent was distinct: almost coppery but not unpleasant, fishy but somehow still fresh.

It mixed with Coppertone and coconut sunscreen on sun-kissed skin.

The sounds of summer created their own kind of silence: the drone of bees, the monotonous electric tone of cicadas, the buzz of hummingbirds.

Boats, wave runners, and jet skis whining in the distance.

The low whir of lawnmowers.

The snick and whoosh of a match being struck and dropped onto briquettes soaked in lighter fluid.

Music drifting from open car windows as they passed on the highway, drivers poking two fingers up in a casual wave even if they didn't know you.

Dragonflies fused together in mid-flight.

Though it was a public place, it always made you feel as if it were private.

Like you were in your own bubble.

A huge, natural bathtub.

An enormous pool.

A place I always longed to be.

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And then there was camp.

Summer camp was what got you through the never-ending school year—the fights with friends, boyfriends, siblings, parents.

The unrelenting cold of winter.

The chores.

The mundane everyday-ness of Everyday.

It was spending the four weeks before Opening Day packing your trunk.

It was lying awake the night before, unable to sleep, and then dressing at top speed in the morning to badger your parents to HURRY UP so you'd be first at the gate.

It was squeals of sheer delight as friends clambered out of their parents' cars and leapt like flying squirrels at one another to koala-hug.

Parents milled about with travel coffee mugs, snapping photos of tearful reunions.

No matter if you were an only child or not, you had 100 to 200 sisters who showed up every summer without fail.

So.

Much.

Giggling.

Charm bracelets sparkled on four out of five wrists.

It was a place where your quirks weren't weird but beloved and endearing traits.

Where cafeteria food was looked forward to, not feared or dreaded.

Where a few words by a few voices ended in a chorus of 100+ voices and smiles.

Where communal showers weren't horrifying but the perfect place to have a 20-person Shower Party in your swimsuits.

Every Sunday, there were 100+ sleeping bags sprawled willy-nilly on the Archery Field, campers happily watching The Newsies for the thousandth time.

It was waking up to Reveille, rolling over in your bunk, and looking out the cabin window to the breathtaking view of the sun splashing across the riverfront.

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The Guadalupe also taught me to respect the sheer might of rapidly rising water.

It flooded.

Of course it flooded.

We used to wish and hope for Flood Days—Bad Weather Days, No School.

We'd go back and forth between low-water crossings to watch debris get sucked downriver, gathering in clusters to nod and snap photos.

I doubt there's a photo album in Kerr County that doesn't have flood documentation.

It was exciting.

Predictable chaos.

The river, pregnant with water, swollen, would escape its banks and it was something to see.

At the Ingram Dam, water that normally slid about thirty feet down to gently rejoin itself became a place where fairly large trees and other debris would be forcefully shot fifty feet into the air.

A spectacle.

Something to behold.

At most, people would lose their docks or maybe an outlying barn or shed.

Maybe—a huge maybe—a car would get swept from a low-water crossing, and another round of "Turn Around, Don't Drown" warnings would be issued.

And we'd be grateful for the flooding.

It acted as a natural cleansing event for the river.

If we got one flood to stir up all the crap and another right after to wash it all down, that was even better.

I'd run from pool to pool left ashore and catch stranded fish in metal coffee cans, pouring them back into the river when the waters receded.

Fond memories of saving our aquatic friends.

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Every Spring Break, we would assume the water would be as warm as the sun beating down on our heads.

Every year, we'd be wrong.

Water temps and air temps are very different.

We would wait to see who was going to be the most badass—who would be the first one in the river that season?

When I was about fourteen, my best friend and I decided to raft down the river from Schumacher Crossing to the Dam, about three miles.

We imagined floating up to a friend's dock near the Dam, all bronze from the sun, shiny with our efforts—unimaginably beautiful river goddesses.

Instead, we were as red as lobsters from sunburn, probably pretty ripe with sweat, and covered in bug bites.

We were not river goddesses.

We dragged ourselves out of the water and collapsed.

I remember leaping from MO Ranch bridge as a teenager in the dead of night, trusting my body to not be shattered on the rocks but be cushioned by the Guadalupe.

I remember Polar Bear plunges in January.

The cold would rob you of your breath and even the most mild-mannered person would erupt in a volley of swear words.

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The river flooded, yes.

But it was our river.

We understood it.

We respected it.

We knew its moods.

We trusted it.

Every Fourth of July, we camped ten feet from the water's edge.

We put our children in canoes and floated down its length.

We sent our daughters, son, and granddaughter to camp on its banks.

We built our lives around it, beside it, with it.

For forty years, it held me.

For three generations, it held us.

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The Dam used to be packed, the water crossings, too.

Now they sit empty.

The silence is what strikes me most.