Mole: “And you really live by the river? What a jolly life.”
Ratty: “By it and with it and on it and in it . . . . What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing.”
Kenneth Grahame, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
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“The tale that River told was so strange, so mysterious, that all the listening in the world did not quite explain all that was in it. Even River, who seemed to be doing just as he liked, was not entirely his own master. Something that Sea had said had got into his spirit.”
Fay Inchfawn, WHO GOES TO THE WOOD
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Today it is wet and 30 degree-ish outdoors, and one has a feeling of intense rapture. Life is stirring. Our river has been thawing and running in my dreams.
Soon the ice will break, in fact it might begin today. Just a few weak spots where the ice thins from snowy white to a shade of puce, and the current beneath the surface will rise to greet the world for another season of primal joy.
With the first truly open water on the river and bay will come the Canada goose scouts–followed in a few days by the entire triumphant tribe. Red-wings will return to resound among the cattails with their “O-Ka-Reeeeee“.
Then, as the current cuts loose from its icy prison, River will rush into our thawing bay with a flood of mergansers–snappy black and white males circling around their red-headed ladies in one of nature’s most whimsical courtship rituals.
On that glorious day of open water, I will dance. Nothing can stave off my shouts of ecstasy when River cuts loose. Sometimes I actually cry with the blithering euphoria of it all.
All my life, I’ve been passionate about rivers. My girlhood home was situated on two acres overlooking a stream where my friends and I rode the ice floes during spring thaws. (Our parents didn’t know about that!)
As the season warmed, I caught tadpoles in the river (we called them polliwogs) and kept them in a fish bowl full of water indoors until they hopped out and began frogging around the kitchen. In autumn the river quieted to a drowsy stillness. In winter we skated on the river.
Now, in answer to a lifelong passion, I’m at home on a flowage lake. Just a handful of canoe minutes away lies the Big Elk River–the pristine wild stream that feeds into and creates the bay and lake on which we live. In spring, summer, and autumn we paddle up and down River, savoring its delights.
Even during the months of seemingly inexorable winter, River runs in my mind. When River freezes I close my eyes and dream of swirling water. When River freezes I go on paddling upstream in currents of dreams.
Soon my currents of dreams will become currents of reality!
Margaret L. Been–All Rights Reserved