Jenny O'Connell

On my back I can see the sky. The clear, sparkling blue, the rolling thunderheads, the way the two sides seem like they could fold together at the crease where I lie. I remember the gold miners, how they make coffee, how their children splash and dig, the maybe of their mornings, every time. One may think I am crazy, out here, trailing a woman’s ghost. Maybe I am. I can all but see her, the way she stands in the doorway of the old sauna at Morgamoja, her hand on the handle carved from a gnarled tree branch, her sleeves rolled up, her blue eyes challenging. The fireweed at her feet catches the late-day sun like tiny violet stars. She’s almost smiling.

“The Office of the Mayor of Miessi,” SLICE Magazine

The river woman is a bartender, shuttle driver, weekend warrior, company owner, water protector, mother, guide. She wakes when it’s raining and wonders what streams are running; packs her car at first light; leaves work early to catch the dam release. She speaks the river’s name with an almost religious reverence: a place of peace, of power and energy, of healing, of truest self, of home. On these waters she’s learned problem solving and quick decision-making skills, found confidence and voice, taken risks and faced fears. She lives for that trembling line between elation and destruction, the feeling of riding a white blade of water around boulders, eddies, and holes, over waves and waterfalls. She paddles it as hard as anyone.

“Women of the River,” Maine Magazine 2021