In Recovery

It is always a challenge to come back to Utah. 

I don't hate the state. It's quite a lovely desert with stunning scenery and fantastic outdoor activities. Because I was raised here (by an Idaho boy) I benefited from the finest education in outdoors activities a girl could wish for: hiking, biking, snowmobiling, camping, dirt-biking, boating. These are the aspects of Utah I miss and wish I could transplant to my current circumstances. 

More difficult, however, is the painful, chest-tightening love for these people. My family. 

I'm staying at my parent's house. Dad made up a room for me, and made sure I was supplied with towels and soap and clean sheets. 

Dad and I drove down to St. George yesterday morning and spent the afternoon with Lee. (It was roughly the same time of year that he and I traveled to Northern Italy and Southern France after the MIVD's lies caused me to lose my position. I don't recall much of that trip, but he remembers it happily!)We went to Zion's National Park and hiked a few hours up the Narrows. "The Narrows" is a slot canyon carved out by the Virgin River. When you hike the Narrows, you walk in the silty, muddy water almost the entire time. Sometimes it is ankle-depth - and sometimes it goes to your waist. 

It was overcast and, as the drops of rain sometimes touched down, we listened for the roar that precedes a flash flood, and we kept an eye out for every refuge: every high ground and crevice we could conceivably grab hold of if the floods came sweeping in. At one point, we did hear a roar echo through the canyons and I thought, "oh shit". I looked back to Amy and urged her forward to a space in the rocks where I thought I could keep us from being swept away. Dad, hearing the noise as well and not wanting to be caught on the opposite side of the river, separated from his daughters, made his way quickly, bravely, and idiotically across. Later, when we were alone, I said, "you shouldn't have crossed when you did. You could have been caught out."

"I needed to save Lee," he said. 

I knew what he meant. I needed to save her, too. 

Lee said, "If this was Tolkien, and we were members of the Fellowship, I would be Pippin."

"Okay," I said. "I can see that."

"Jane would be Merrie," she continued. "And Corinne would be Legolas...and Dad would be Samwise." 

"Who am I?" I asked her.

"Aragorn," she said. 

That is how she sees me. Invincible. Wielding a sword. God, I wish I was worthy of that hero-worship. 

She's finishing the summer semester at school. Miraculous, considering the preceding five years of drug addiction. I'm so proud of her.