the quechee gorge

July 31, 2008

Ten or eleven years ago I discovered the Quechee Gorge with Lady Erica. We were on our first outreach to Lebanon, NH. We might have had a rental car and a check from the IHOT that allowed us to set up camp at the lodging of our choice. We found the Quechee Inn at the bottom of the gorge and undoubtedly coupled the northern excursion with a cheap bottle of wine from some local NH grocery store and a long evening of gossip and my recounting novel outlines.

I remember the school was really appreciative of our presentation and offered us lunch between our shows. We also had enough time to kill between presentations to go back to the gorge and take a walk along the lightly snow covered path in our costumes.

Well, we went back there a couple times… and the details of each visit blend together. One trip had us driving through the White Mountains during a blizzard. And there were margaritas at some TexMex place in Lebanon, as well as the Dr. Suess Hamlet t-shirt I did not buy and have not been able to find since…

But the Quechee Gorge has always stayed with me. It probably has been nine years since I've made the trip there, as awe-inspiring as that short trip to the Grand Canyon of New England can be. Nonetheless, it stayed with me after leaving Higgins and outreaches in my past.

It truly is awesome, as that word is meant to describe. The Connecticut River carving itself through rock and forest. Not quite so grand as Arizona… but still breathtaking in its beauty and frightening in its plunge from top to bottom.

For much of my early twenties, I saw myself standing at the edge of that gorge, trying to determine whether to take a step towards crossing it or staying safely on the side without daring to leap to the other side. I imagined the way across like that invisible bridge in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – impossible to detect, but requiring faith to cross. That invisible bridge was London in my life's allegory … and then I fell off of it.

But the thing about the Quechee Gorge is that it is just as lovely when you walk down into it. There is the water and even the shores of the river are a magnificent piece of nature. The Inn that was subsidized by Higgins was in the gorge… so it isn't a bad place to be… for a while.

Ultimately one does look up and want to return to the top. I think I've had a nice visit below, a chance to mend the wounds of my fall and get my bearings… and lose them again. It is time to start climbing back… but the question is… to go back to the side where I started or the side I had hoped to reach by the invisible bridge.