The three of them were sprawled sideways across the yellow raft, heads flung back, mouths wide open with howls of laughter. Squashed together like sardines, Savannah, James, and Zoe tipped and teetered giddily while they sought balance between them in a rubber raft made for two people. James' long legs disappeared into the water on one side of the boat, and his lengthy torso extended well over the rim of the other side, but the two short girls at either elbow were slouched down inside it, their bottoms grazing the stony shore through the thin rubber. Zoe's long black braids trailed into the water, floating like seaweed as the raft bobbed dangerously low to the shining surface. It was already starting to ship plenty of river water. Savannah's face was red and wet with tears from laughter, but she tried to pull it together for a moment as I stood nervously on the shore and attempted to talk some sense into them.

"Um.... guys? This really might be kind of a bad idea .... you might want to think about this ....it's a long trip to be so crowded... Savannah? Where are the oars?"

"We... ha ha ha ... don't have any.... ha ha ha.... don't worry, Mary, I think it's going to be just fine!"

"You don't have oars? I thought you were kidding about that!"

The boat began to drift languidly out from the shore, coaxed by the current running strongly in the middle. James and Zoe attempted to synchronize their wobbles as they bailed out the water in the bottom. They were about twenty feet away from me. I could still put my foot down and say Absolutely not! I won't let you do this. But they were seventeen, they knew everything, and they wanted an adventure. I was vulnerable to losing this argument because I wanted them to like me and think I'm cool. I was seventeen once.

"Mary, it's okay," Savannah said, making more of an effort to assure me. "The river's not deep. The current will take us home. We really want to do this. We'll be fine."

‘But Sav! I told your Mom I was driving you two miles upriver. I think we came a lot further than that because we couldn't find the landing we thought was there. I have no idea how far up we came or how long this will take you. This will be much longer than two hours. You'd better reconsider this since you don't have oars."

"Ha ha ha! Cut it out, James! Oops! Um... Mary... we don't have anything we have to do all day; it doesn't matter if it takes a lot of hours. It's what we want to do."

"But! You have no shirts!" I whined. "No hats! No sun screen! No oars, for God's sake! I didn't know that!"

" We've got these", Zoe said. She sat up and earnestly feigned preparedness. She waved a plastic bag over her head. It had three peanut butter sandwiches in it. "And this!" she cried triumphantly, holding up a half empty bottle of water.

"Great" I muttered sullenly. The raft drifted further out and downstream, slowly, inevitably.

"Savannah!" I shouted. This is your last chance to change your mind! You might hate this after a while and you'll be stuck! Listen to your intuition right now this minute and tell me if you really feel you ought to do this!"

"Ha, ha, ha..... uh..... OK...... (silence.) "MARY - IT WILL BE FINE!"

They drifted away.

Defeated, I walked dejectedly back to my car. My mind was going crazy, but truly speaking, the inside part of me felt comfortable. I too, thought that it was probably fine. Foolish, maybe, but not dangerous. Nevertheless, I practiced my conversation with Sav's mother Lois, my best friend on my return ride home. It was a little further than we said....I know it isn't the best but I don't think they're in any real danger....my intuition and theirs were Ok with it.... Lois, they really wanted to do it... My reasoning seemed to grow more lame by the mile as I watched the odometer tick off the actual distance we had driven through thickly wooded country to where I let them off at a landing. Oh, Lord. It was nine miles, not two.

Lois's usual calm demeanor deepened to a graver set, and her voice was gently incredulous as she looked up at me from the county map we anxiously hovered over.

"Nine miles, and no oars? No shoes, no shirts, no sun screen? Mary, there's nothing between here and there but miles of brushy county forest! What if they get tired of the river, and try to get out and walk home? They might get lost. And I don't even know their parents that well."

I looked at her miserably. I hadn't thought of that. I knew that Lois understood that I made important decisions by intuition, and we both appreciated a kid's need for adventure. We raised our rowdy daughters together since they were tots with a shared understanding about that stuff when it came to safety guidelines. But what would I say to Zoe and James' parents, or the sheriff for that matter, about dumping three barefoot kids in bathing suits into the river nine miles upstream in a little raft with no supplies?

I vowed reparation. I called the park district to find out how fast the current in the St. Croix River runs; Lois and I calculated that the river would bring them to our landing in about six hours, if all went well. Since it could be dark by then, I also called the sheriff to ask him at what point it made sense to declare someone lost on the river. I went home and worried devotedly while I baked muffins for them and packed a generous picnic supper. I had already assured Lois that I would wait with her for them at the landing all evening at the river, if that's what it took. She graciously accepted all my efforts at reparation.

A few hours before sunset, Lois and I headed for our rendezvous point, well supplied with food, books, flashlights, and conversation subjects. The light was clear and golden on the blue river as we made our way to a large boulder that sat in the shallows about ten feet from shore. The rock accommodated the two of us snugly, and we settled in for our vigil. Across the river, a fishing bird plunged into the water with a splash and flew off with something silver flashing in it's beak. The river flowed around us unperturbed by this event or any, at three miles an hour.

Lois and I talked a lot, then less and less. We worked through all the best and worst scenarios. They wouldn't drown because the river wasn't deep and they all knew how to swim. There were no rapids in the river's course between those two landings. They probably wouldn't be murdered by a psychopathic hunter or fisherman --- that kind of thing was only in bad movies. The biggest concern is that they would get bored or confused, and get off the river to come home on foot. That wouldn't be good because they were barefoot and wearing only wet bathing suits, and the nights were cool enough now in early September to cause concern about hypothermia. Lois and I would have to face the embarrassment of calling the sheriff and requesting a search party, and be in big trouble with the other parents. (Presumably the other parents were more sensible than me and sure to be angry that I let them go on the river like that.) Of course, they'd be found. This was Minnesota, for God's sake, not the Himalayas. We worried anyway.

The color of sky and river deepened. We strained our sight steadily ahead, seeking a glimpse of our watery wayfarers, but the river bent out of sight less than a mile away, so our further vision was thwarted. We heard news of them from a fisherman going by in a motorboat.

"Oh, yes! I saw ‘em!" he said. "They were having a great time....laughing every minute ... No, that was quite a ways back. It'll be a while."

He motored off downstream, leaving us alone with each other and the river, peacefully flowing at exactly the same rate. Silence grew as the sun disappeared from the sky. Slowly, delicately, the chilly white mists emerged from both banks of the river, like forest spirits venturing forth for the night, seeking a rendezvous with each other over the water. It was a little scary and very lovely. Lois and I looked at our watches, and made an agreement about when the real panic could begin. The river didn't know what time it was. We cuddled beneath a rough wool blanket together, waiting.

We heard them long before we saw them. Howls of laughter drifted to us from the distance, their unmistakable hilarity ricocheting around the soft corners of the river bend. How could they be laughing and conversing with each other so loudly? We could practically make out their words even though we couldn't see them yet, and we knew for a fact they were wedged right up close to each other's eardrums. How could they still be laughing after six hours of a crowded, ill-prepared river journey? It cracked us up. Lois and I laughed too, silently, so they wouldn't hear us, as we lay in wait for them. We laughed harder and harder until tears streamed down our faces, clinging to each other for balance so we wouldn't fall off our perch into the river. The river murmured against our rock, unknowing.

It took forever for the tiny black dot against the grey river-and-sky backdrop to grow large enough to look like a raft bursting with three teenagers in bathing suits. They kept getting caught on the edge near the grassy banks, too far from the current to make the kind of haste we felt was appropriate at this point. If they only had oars...! Oh well. Lois and I kept our silence, blending conspiratorially into the rock in the dim light. We wanted to hear every silly word out of their mouths before they realized someone was listening. Eventually they had a long hushed discussion with each other about whether there really were figures on that rock or not, til with a hoot and a hey they recognized the landing. When they finally discerned that it was us sitting there on the rock laughing at them, they were mortified.

Savannah, James, and Zoe floundered stiffly out of their cramped positions and into the cold dark shallows. They reached the haven of the shore one by one, dragging their yellow raft limply behind them. We adults hugged them and applied emergency muffins while we took an uncompromising inventory of their condition. They were cold, shoulders hunched up to their ears and teeth chattering. They were sunburned. They were hungry. They were triumphant, but very glad to be rescued. They were ..... fine.

That river current flowed in the very heart of me for days and days afterwards.

And I say to you that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and thou shalt see that all manner of things shall be well.
- Hildegaard of Bingen