Opinion | Are We Crazy to Cross Such a Treacherous River?

“Assume we will cross it?” I requested Kasia.

She nodded.

We strapped on our huge backpacks and clung to that rope for pricey life as we battled the present. Once we emerged on the far facet, the backpackers cheered. I pumped my fist triumphantly. We raced to the marriage, hearts pounding, eyes gleaming.

Some twenty years later, deep within the Adirondack woods, there we stood, on the fringe of the jagged ice. These two moments felt like the start and the tip of one thing, with our lives within the center. Now our children, ages 16 and 18, had been virtually grown. The oldest boy, who has a girlfriend and the keys to our automobile, was already one foot out the door. An empty nest loomed. Most of the weddings that we had attended, all these years in the past, had led to separation or stalemate.

“What do you assume?” I requested Kasia. “Can we cross it?”

She hesitated, and I understood. After all we might cross it. Or attempt to, anyhow. However was that basically nonetheless the query? Or was it extra like: Ought to we cross it? Given who we had been now — older, wiser and, sure, extra boring. We had a home, a 401(ok), vehicles, children and a canine. At night time, we regularly lay awake in mattress, worrying about our child’s faculty functions and our mother and father’ well being. All of it, the entire generally weighty lot of it, felt just like the preamble to an impulsive determination.

Collectively we surveyed the frozen river one final time, then locked eyes. The river hummed beneath the ice, seductive and insistent, pulling us towards its edge, as if it understood us higher than we understood ourselves.

“What would we inform our children to do?” Kasia requested lastly.

And that settled it.

We had flirted with the hazard of the river simply sufficient to ship a jolt by our hearts, however we had sufficient sense to disregard its name. And it felt good. As a result of if you’re younger, the river owns you.

Collectively we turned and adopted our canine, who was already trotting again up the hill, commencing the lengthy journey house.

Jake Halpern is an creator and host of the podcast “Deep Cowl.” He and Michael Sloan shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning for “Welcome to the New World,” a 20-part collection in The New York Occasions.

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