Sometimes you just have to
accept your own lack of discrimination. Of selectiveness. The inability to
choose one or two photos, over the bunch that catalogue the arrival, the
discovery, the changes, the wonder, and the loveliness.
You have to understand...and most probably
you do...the experience of being somewhere, and each moment what you are gazing at..changes just a bit. Shifts
just a mite. And then, it's all new. Glorious in a whole new way.
Walking on the river a
few days ago
was cold!!! And windy. It was a bit after 4:00 pm, and there were river
devotees scattered quietly, here and there.
Sometimes you are
standing to take in
what on earth you are seeing, then taking frozen fingers and taking out the
camera, which turns on slowly because it too is a bit cold..(and this is not
even officially cold yet, mind you) and after you take the shot, you are neck
in neck with another river devotee, clothed to the gills against the chill.
They smile at you; you at them, and none of them
can really help it. It's like a huge club of individuals, with or without dogs
or children or friends, who are compelled to come to the river.
To come and walk and let it seep deep into them. The openness. The
largesse. The eternal quality. The reminder of endlessness. And the ultimate
changeability. They can't help it.They say "It changes every day, every
year, every moment.
You wait a minute, and
it's so different,
all in one evening." They say it with wonder and fascination, and you agree. You murmur through your hat obscuring your sight and your scarf
and your big bundled coat. You smile to
them,and yourself, and tell them your very favorite (for today)thing about the
river.
How, in summer, at the
tail end of the path,
at the aged Maple, there is a network of Bittersweet that houses hundreds. I
mean hundreds. Of Wax Cedar Wings. And at bedtime, in the summer, they are all
nestling in; all muttering to each other and saying their goodnights and
blessings and what not, chattering quietly in amongst their nests and eggs and
babies and fledglings, admonishing the pesky young ones, bringing them into
line, into bedtime.
And just for today, how in spring and summer, there come down the
river groups of THOUSANDS of young fishes, and if it's evening, the insects are
hovering over the waters in clouds, and the mouthes of the small baby growing
hungry fishes trickle the surface of the water with this fluttering movement of
thousands of small circles. Rippling. So that if you don't stop and watch and realize, you
have no idea your beloved river is carrying and feeding and holding these
thousands of young fish, over and over again, throughout the spring and summer,
as they hatch.
And then they tell you their favorite things. The Egrets that
stand by the edges, feeding.
The one white and
black duck that sweeps beneath the waters, as you stand, awestruck, waiting to see
where they will reappear, and they do....far far down the river. And you stand
there, trying to imagine being them. Living alone. In that cold cold December
water. Seeing that human up there, far away, and deciding to split. To dive under the water, and maybe streamline
yourself, your feet behind you paddling, your wings tucked by your side, your beautiful
face and bill leading, until you decide, well, that's far enough, and you
gracefully surface once again.
Everyone has favorite things, and observations, and some are here
to walk quietly, leaning against the wind already, even though it's only
December. To nod to you, as they pass by. Others are overflowing with wonder,
and in their eyes is the question; Are you interested in conversing about this
place? Because I am.
So when you are turned inward, and
unwinding
or refinding your footing in your life, you smile and turn your eyes away, and
keep up your pace, and then they know. You are here for the solitary path.
Whereas if you respond to them by looking into their eyes, and remarking upon
the beautiful morning, evening, afternoon, sunset, sunrise, clouds, waters,
creatures, winds, cold, heat, or all of the above, you are saying 'Sure, I'm up
for a conversation."
And it's
always...always about the river. Riverlove. Devotees. Being called back. Over and over
again.
