My 17-year-old nephew, Will, is the eldest of my Vermont sister’s six children—her first teenager. She has been expressing concern about his regular retreats to the Internet and his lack of plans for after high school. I remember this time in my own young life. I felt bound by the smallness of rural Vermont. I wanted badly to be free but the future was clouded in uncertainty. How does one leave home and imagine a new life?
In response, my Arizona sister, Kelly, and I began crafting a plan for Will’s Western coming of age visit. It was time. As aunties who reside on the other side of the country, we have missed birthdays, ball games, concerts and proms. This is the moment we have been waiting for—the ultimate chaperone role.
The first few days I put Will to work to earn his plane ticket. We built garden beds, made flower arrangements, harvested peaches and sold them at the farmer’s market. As we hopped from rock to rock in Oak Creek during a necessary break from all the farm tasks, Will marveled at how this overgrown and lush place resembled Vermont. Subconsciously I found a green corner of Arizona where I can root myself.
I thought back to a visit to Vermont when Will was a toddler. They lived in an old house backed by a beautiful millstream. I stole Will away with me down to the stream that was overgrown from the fullness of the season. I carried him across the dense brambles I recognized from the streams of my youth and down to the shady ribbon of water. There were big, mossy rocks draped in green fur. We dangled our feet in the cold water, freed from the confines of our shoes. Will shrieked with delight and possibly a little fear. I was practically a stranger, but he accepted me as an extension of his mother. He gripped my arm and shoulder with trust and confidence that overwhelmed me. Stripped down to his diaper, I held both of his hands, and we hopped from rock to rock across the stream. At each landing, he looked at me with wonder and awe, as if he was soaring. We made a fairy house from sticks and leaves next to the creek at the base of an elm tree. I considered how fast he would be changing; that soon these fairies would be homeless as he grew into boyish pursuits. I thought of the special places I would like to share with him. I imagined the enormous hopes and dreams we all had for his life, before he could verbalize them. Now we were filling his head and heart with the homes we have made in Arizona, and bearing witness as he begins to imagine how to make his own.
We pack my Subaru and head to the North Rim, another magical place where I lived many lives—on trail crew, as a Canyon veg girl (botanist), then later conducting fieldwork with volunteers. I was working on a fire history research project for Northern Arizona University the spring Will was born. His first summer in the world I walked through burnt forest measuring aspen regrowth after the Outlet Fire, thinking of my new title: Aunt. I vowed to take the role of helping my sister to raise a human seriously. I watched those trees shoot out of the charred ground determined to grow. Seventeen seasons later we drive by the same aspens that are now teenagers, like Will. “Those aspens are the same age as you,” I tell him. Their leaves quiver in the wind like a symphony of magical instruments. “That’s cool,” Will says, as he flashes me a big smile.
We are a clan celebrating this moment in time. Kelly and I hike him down the dusty North Kaibab Trail and Will plays Red Hot Chili Pepper riffs on the guitar with Mike, my sweetheart. This same soundtrack played while Kelly and I smoked cigarettes with Will’s mom on college break. The company is easy and comfortable, like we have all known each other for a long time, and as if our sister is also present.
We are gazing down at the Colorado River through Angel’s Window, and Will asks me incredulously, “How did this happen?” I struggle to explain how the Grand Canyon came to be, rock layer by layer. I find it is difficult to even make sense of my own blip on that timeline, so how can I begin to account for the millions of years this canyon has been in the making? I thought about how this place has been a force in shaping me—through many years of hiking, working, studying, cutting, learning, building, writing, singing, painting and loving here. There were the heartaches too: the people who have passed away and those who are just gone, the meadows I knelt down to study that today are bare buffalo wallows, the hard lessons I had to learn, and the battles I fought on beaches below. All of these experiences mingle like benevolent and malicious ghosts in my memories. The emotions flood back here on the rim with rainclouds heavy and dark, stretching for miles. Then I pull myself back to the present moment and find gratitude to be immersed in this place in present time.
With these rocks, I can trace my path, and the millions of years of prehistory that made this Grand Canyon. I have touched the small, polished stones littered along Unkar Delta and witnessed fragments of time lying around—colorful elements of change. This place reminds us that change is constant, inevitable. Each rainstorm bursting from the sky fills the driest riverbed with new current, and it journeys downstream. I acknowledge all the subtle changes that cannot be perceived by the human eye or a transect tape. These rocks and rivers are alive and rearranging themselves just as we are; they evolve with both sudden and enduring energy.
I have no idea the twists and turns Will’s life is bound to take. As I write this the immensity of it stretches out in front of me for even further than any of us can see. After these two weeks reconnecting to his sweet spirit I believe he will seek plenty of adventures. As he follows dreams of his own, I hope he will visit canyons and streams often, to let the constant flow of the water around smooth rocks remind him of the certainty of change.
