I'd noticed it before, earlier in the day, that time was doing funny things, having its way with me.  I'd finish parts of the rapid with no recollection of having passed a particular point- I'd simply arrive somewhere in a whuff of impact, become self-aware in the instant of survival, do what I had to do... and continue on in a fugue.  On several occasions I'd pitoned into rocks I'd never encountered on this run, only to recover and move on, shaking my head at... well, where my head was.

I had no recall of the waterfall.  I know I went off it.  It's kind of hard to miss.  I remember the impact, and the sudden weight of all the water that followed, and emerging inexplicably upright.  It was one of those unaccountable things, except they’d been happening to me all day.  I recall turning around in the pool and looking up at this monster... but for the life of me, I don't remember seeing the pool come up at me.  Normally I watch for that... but today was not a normal day.  It was beautiful- clear water, clear sky, a beautiful canyon and a creek wending its way down, down... but I wasn't really there for that.  I don't know what I was there for.  Something was nagging at the edge of my consciousness, distracting.

I'd never noticed the texture of that rock, and the waterline on it below which the moss was scoured away.  It seemed jewel-like, distracting.  Odd that I'd looked at this rock a dozen times before and never really seen it.  In my periphery it seemed compelling, but when I looked directly at it, it was just a rock.

Time, having his way with me.  Or me, stumbling through it.  An odd little voice in the back of my head, a teasing fragment of an idea just beyond my grasp… gone again.
I hadn't hit my head on anything. had I?  No, no new dings on my helmet.  I couldn't tell.  or it wasn't important.

I didn’t realize it then, but today I figured it out.
I'd played this scene before.

It wasn't the creek, or the river- they were just the scenery.  This had happened before, a long time ago, when I had been at sea.  I clearly recall times where I looked up from what I'd been doing for hours, days... and had no idea what I'd been doing just 5 minutes ago, or where I’d been in between- absorbed so wholly in my pondering that reality was a jolt.  I remember afterwards wheezing a laugh that startled me.  I hadn't spoken for a while, and the noise was somehow strange.  A ruthless part of me laughed at my surprise, thought it was hilarious.  Then, as now, I was empty.  Maybe that’s not the way to put it… but not doing what I normally do.  Not achieving, or striving. Just doing what I was doing, surviving. Repeating a physical mantra to absurdity... and every so often, lurching out of a daze with the stark realization that most of the things I worried about are ridiculous. I'd laugh at my own ridiculousness and somehow manage to be surprised at the sound of my own voice.  It became almost predictable. 

In the pool below the falls, I started giggling, and couldn't stop. The mist from the falls was coating me with wet beads.  The roar of the falls was deafening in the confines of the pool, more felt in the hollow of my chest than heard.  The light was doing that thing it does in the mist. My buddy was still at the top of the falls, a million miles away.  High above, a breeze was moving the late summer leaves on the trees, and down in the belly of this canyon, in an eddy at the base of these falls I had a moment of epiphany that was almost painful.  My throat was getting sore, but I laughed and held my palms up in the mist and let it wash me clean.  I didn’t try to stop.

When I was at sea, I had a friend who lived in my peripheral vision when times were hard.  He was an older man, maybe my future self, maybe my ancestor- and although I never saw him directly, he seemed somehow kind, and proud of my work and of my potential.  It was confusing when I’d look up at him at times to discover nobody there.  In times like these, just clinging to consciousness while repeating over and over the same physical task, ideas that teased but wouldn’t quite form seemed to flirt with me, and I remember that when I’d turn to him to phrase a question I’d discover him not there, and my question now suddenly didn’t make any sense anyways.   …and there I’d be, back on a ship in the middle of the North Pacific, suddenly fully awake, with an expression on my face probably not unlike that of the fish in my hand.  A perfect tragicomic moment, played for an audience of nobody. and the joke was on me.

By the time my buddy made it down to the pool, I had finished laughing.  I was tired, felt like I’d been on the river for a long time.  His face was all smiles, and I didn’t bother trying to explain what had happened.  His journey down today’s river had been a different one, and I was happy to leave it at that.