can i tell you one of my favorite stories?
so in 2010, i was in bad shape. struggling with mental health. dropped out of college, went through a bad breakup. i decided i needed some travel to take my mind off it, so i enlisted my brother for a canoe trip down the dolores river.

the dolores has an extremely short boating season, and a $200 coleman canoe really isn't the best watercraft for it. heavy, slow, not very maneuverable. we set out in the second week of june, with the snowmelt & outflow from mcphee reservoir already dwindling.

the next morning we woke up and the river was a couple inches lower. we had enough food for three nights. we got to big gypsum valley, the last road we would intersect with before entering a maze of deep canyons. we decided to press on.

the rest of that day was rough. we hit some rapids that were tougher than i was used to. the canoe felt like paddling a bathtub. started dragging bottom more. we camped on a sandbar that night as i obsessively watched the water level.

when we woke up, the river had dropped again. i started to get pretty freaked out. at this rate i wondered if we would end up dragging the boat behind us, or trying to walk out. both prospects sounded pretty miserable. none of this was good for my fragile mental state.

still, we tried to enjoy the day. the dolores river canyon is mind-blowingly beautiful, and full of treasures. oases, fremont-era pictographs, high red rock cliffs and spires. my anxiety was distracting me though.

my brother tried to keep me calm. we had been in worse scrapes than this, and it wasn't like we were going to starve or die of thirst. we would figure it out. we decided to power ahead toward some tributaries we hoped would add some water to the river.

we passed the first tributary -- dry. then the second -- dry. now i was really sweating. our last chance was la sal creek, which looked more likely to be flowing. i was so distracted i wasn't bothering to take in the incredible beauty around us.

finally we reached la sal creek. flowing! precious water! i cheered at the site of those beautiful CFS. we pulled up onto a sandbar and brewed some coffee. for the first time since day one i was able to relax and take in the surroundings. but sunset was approaching.

we weren't far from the mouth of the canyon, so we figured we'd press ahead toward the highway bridge, where we could hitchhike back to the car in slickrock. we had to hurry -- the sun was dropping behind the mesa top and the temperature was falling.

we made it within site of the bridge. we pulled up on the bank to make camp, just below a little riffle in the river. as we climbed out, i don't remember how it happened, but the canoe tipped. the full force of the dolores river went gushing into the boat, soaking everything.

we jumped into the river, grabbing gear as it bobbed downstream, hurling it onto the bank. thankfully we had changes of clothes and towels in a dry bag, but the sleeping bags and tent were saturated. we pulled the canoe on shore and caught our breath, soaked and shivering.

we stood on the rocky shore, surrounded by tamarisk. as my brother tried to flick the water out of a lighter, i went climbing up the bank to look for firewood. it was going to be a long, cold night.

i ascended the bank, and stopped dead in my tracks. there, across a meadow, a little cabin. in front of it, a firepit with a roaring, happy campfire. around it, a man with long dreadlocks playing guitar, a woman and two little girls in sundresses. a vision from heaven.

i slogged up to them, soggy, shivering, and muddy from the armpits down. the man stopped playing guitar, looked at me, and said: "you look like you could use a beer."

okay, now i was sure of it. i'd died and gone to heaven.

i told them what happened -- we capsized, our gear was soaked, could we just dry our sleeping bags by the fire? dan* was his name. he said sure, go get your brother. we dried off, changed clothes, settled in around the fire as the stars came out. tara*, sean's wife, made dinner.

*(not really their names)

we devoured salad and quinoa, with a good chunk of the meal grown in dan and tara's garden. over beers, they told me their story. dan was from new york, but fled to the west in the 90s, where he met tara. one of their kids was born in a cave in the gila wilderness.

after dinner, dan pulled an old mattress out into the meadow and gave us some blankets. the family went inside to bed, and my brother and i began to drift off beneath the mighty milky way blazing over the paradox valley.

as i fell asleep, i thought about the turmoil i'd been going through lately. the breakup. college. about my anxiety in the canyon. watching the water drop day by day, sure i was headed for disaster, when all along there was grace waiting for me at the end.

and dan and tara -- i thought about how different their lives were from anything i had ever experienced. how there are innumerable ways to live on earth. how my life would go on, without my ex, with wherever i was being taken, whether i knew it or not.

in the morning we helped dan weed the garden. dan was headed into naturita for groceries, so we hopped in his pickup and rode east. we hitchhiked the rest of the way back to the car, returned for the canoe, and headed back toward denver.

i had a lot of turmoil still ahead of me. moving back in with my parents, crappy jobs, bad dates, too much drinking. but dan's place had shown me that even in the depths of misery and hopelessness, faced with ruin, to look for the spark of the divine.

i visited dan & tara a couple times after that. hitchhiked there the summer after i finished my bachelor's. it's a magical place, and they're magical people. to this day, when i feel like i did on that riverbank, alone and scared, i remember that family around the fire.