A watery decision

experimenting with iced coffee again…

The road rounds the bend dropping into the valley.  From this view much of the river can be seen.  The late afternoon wind still ripples the calmer water at the bottom of the Campbell Run.  If I were to drive to the waters edge there, I would be greeted by the hot winds and I could stare into the clear water and see every stone.  Yet I know this place will come alive once the sun has gone behind the mountain and the crickets start chirping.

Along the road a few of the maples show their weariness of summer with curling leaves, maybe a hint of yellow here and there.  It’s just too hot right now.  If I drive beyond the valley and through the gorge, the wind will pick up- drawn from the sea to feed all this heat and rising air.  Today, the water just seems to run down to the sea only to escape the heat.  The urgency isn’t here yet – it’s just not time.  Driving on, I remember the place where we pulled off to let Greg dispose of his “sack” – he’d been quietly puking the entire, wild drive over the windy dirt road.  The gas tank had a pinhole leak somewhere near him that flooded the backseat with wretchedness.  But we had to get somewhere.

Now I can stare into the water and see everything – like looking into another’s eyes and seeing their soul – the color of the rocks, the small fish that hold in the current.  In a few months it will be a different river, and I might decide, again; this is not the place to be.  In a few months I may well not be able to peer into that same soul – now harboring secrets that are surrendered only slowly and with gentle persistence.  And I may not find the patience for them to surface – because I have to get somewhere.  And this becomes the challenge; balancing an ever-hoped for patience with the knowledge there might be something else just around the next bend.  Sometimes none of it ever works- the patience isn’t there, the next bend isn’t just right, and I just keep looking for that just-right somewhere.  But sometimes it all comes together – usually unexpectedly – despite all my best planning and scheming – suddenly realizing that I’m right where I need to be at just the right time and nothing more is needed.  That’s usually when it happens best.