River songs
Petaluma River, pipebridge, graffiti, grave, Summer 2007
I’m wondering how many songs have been written about rivers. I’m finding lots. What’s so interesting about rivers? What draws us to them? Why do we have picnics next to the water’s edge? What’s so comforting about falling asleep under a tree on the river bank? Why do pipebridges and wooden trestle bridges attract wanderers, and kids with cans of spray paint? Water songs, not just rivers – there are so many.
Nature and geography are recurring themes among songs, poems, essays, stories, writings of all genres. Why is that? How is it that we so often use our natural surroundings as metaphors for our relationships, for the complexities of life? Why do we need metaphor, rather than just plain old talk about how we feel? Are we afraid to speak directly to, or about, our lives? I admit, metaphor adds an extra layer of color to our conversations, and for the brain exercise alone (okay, not alone…there’s entertainment, as well), I am grateful.
Do we look to nature as a cure for our ills? If we can’t find solace in our lives, do we go to the closest river and look for answers? Yes, apparently. And, deserts, mountains, oceans, forests, and anywhere else in nature that separates us from mankind. Sometimes, we just need to be alone with our thoughts, and nature provides both beautiful and stark settings in which to leave behind the probing questions of people who can’t understand our answers.
I sit by the river still. I find peace in the reflections of light off the water. I find a stillness of mind, while matter flows along, keeping current with the spinning of the globe, and I remember the days when I did not need the river to remind me to carry on.
Song for the night: River, Joni Mitchell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvrA2UL-glk
Thank you for the picture of the pipebridge. I was trying to imagine it, and now I don’t have to. I’ve never seen one before. It is a memorial of sorts, I guess.
They were so fortunate not to have to live in the city, next to a busy highway. (They paved Paradise to put up a parking lot.) Remember that one?
I am glad that you can still find peace by the river. Because none of what happened was the river’s fault. It was simply being a river. (Still, the pain by THAT river must be great.) And yet, perhaps when you go there, you feel a closeness to Owen also.
Nature does draw us, and I think it is because this world is so busy, so frenetic, so bustling. When we go and look at creation, we are reminded that there is a Creator, and we find peace in the things that are natural, and not man made.(Not artificial.)
I have often thought this is why God put Adam and Eve in a garden. (Peaceful and beautiful.) And it was romantic, no doubt.
I love to look at the mountains most of all. Even though I live in Florida, and I’m very near the ocean, I find my greatest solitude in the North Carolina mountains, in a house on top of the world, where I can reach out and almost touch God. At night, the lights below look like a million Christmas trees in the valley. But in the daytime, the majestic mountains really are purple and smoky, and eagles fly in the sky, just above the porch. I sit in my rocker there, and never want to leave.
Here in Florida, I like the water quite a bit also, and sometimes take a picnic to a nearby bayou. I live on a small lake, and when we used to have a deck (still in disrepair), we would sit on the screened-in porch and look at the water, and not come in till very late. It had a hypnotizing effect on us, and I miss that.
I am reminded of a beautiful song called, “I Know How The River Feels” (Diamond Rio, and also Garth Brooks, I think. Yes, there are SO many riversongs, and water songs.) But this one says:
Now I know how the river feels
When it reaches the sea
And finally finds the place
It was always meant to be
Holding fast, home at last
Knowing the journey’s through
Lying here with you
I know how the river feels
I like to think that was how it was with Owen. Finding the place he was always meant to be, when he realized that the journey was through, and he was HOME at last. Lonnie
Linda: Go read my blog for today. There’s a song for Owen. Lonnie
http://sparkle333.wordpress.com/
Hi Linda: One more thing. Read “Laughter and Tears”, December 8th also. You give me inspiration, when I read your blog. Be sure you watch the video called “Tears In Heaven”, I thought of you. Hugs-Lonnie
I grew up beside the River Avon.
And as Ratty said in Emily’s Wind in the Willows,
‘I may not talk about my beloved river, but I think about it – I think about it all the time.’