To Rainbow Trout

I don’t know what it is about fly-fishing that makes people want to spend thousands of dollars on a summer vacation at a dude ranch in Colorado, but because of that, the Rainbow Trout Dude Ranch welcomes them. And so they hired me, just finishing my first year of college, to clean the guest cabins.

View from Conejos Peak: I'd hike this on my days off

Fly-fishing for rainbow trout starts early and guests gather in the lodge for coffee to warm up. Though it’s June, we are high in the mountains and the summer heat doesn’t rise this far. The staff is up, too, eating oatmeal and bacon with syrup over everything, and we will begin our work when the guests leave on horseback, heading down to the river. They bought cowboy hats in Taos before coming here. Their brims fade behind the pine, the scent of the trees brushes by me.

Most of them have never been fly-fishing before. And while they are learning how to wade in the river, stand firm against the rushing water, discover their patience, I am in their cabins. Beer bottles empty on the oversized end table. A bottle of gin with the top off. A red-plaid shirt hangs off one side of a chair. James Michner’s Lonesome Dove, open, cover up, in the bathroom. I tidy, finding the line between cleanliness and privacy. They know I am coming, will want to know I have been here, that they can make a mess and I will take care of it. And I will pretend to not see the life underneath it all.

They come for the fishing, the horses, the rodeos, the mountains, the wood cabins and the lodge, the vespers and the talent show on Saturday night. They come for the peace, the clean, the space, the time, the slow motion, the ease. They have faith these exist and they will not be disappointed.

Me with Britta. End of summer '86.

I have come for the work, for the unknown, for the challenge, for the change. I come, mainly, knowing somehow, I will meet someone I need to meet, who will undo me, unfold me, take my arms out to the side as far as they will stretch. Her name is Britta; she wears small round turquoise earrings and she has a band of sunburn across her nose. She invites me for a hike and it’s not until midway up that she asks my name. I think, somehow, she must already know it. I think she knows the name I was meant to have, the name the universe gave me. I can hear it in the water rushing below, the trout shining the words: Madeline, Sage, Rocko, Laredo...