“Looking below, the sights and sounds of a lush, wooded river bank called me more. I wanted to follow them down. It was steep, but here was a challenge I could deal with. Physical tests I loved. Things seldom felt too dangerous for me in the physical world. Here I could prove my courage, even though I couldn’t muster it in the house. I hesitated briefly, but my body took over, seeking distance from a risk I had forged for myself but could not face. I was suddenly on my feet, climbing down over the stone wall onto the steep, leafy wet slope, following the sound of water, a sure balm for what ailed me.

As my feet reached the soft ground, I heard my voice say aloud, “It doesn’t look so dangerous to me.” During a previous visit, Carla had warned me about the ravine, had said it was dangerous. She said to never go down there. I had been an athlete and a dancer, coordinated and easy with my body. I chuckled in defiance of her warning as I started down the long, vertical bank, surveying what lay below. It was easily maneuverable. Steep, yes, but that was the character of the thing. It was wet from the rains lending a softness to the trek which made it fun.
That summer was a locust year. We had always called them “locusts” even though I had heard that “cicadas” was the proper name for them. Still, to me they were locusts. Every seventeen years they emerged from their hiding places and dominated forests all over southern Ohio, turning woodlands into an uproar of rhythmic sound. They offered an audible buffer from the world above me.
The recent downpour had left the ground mushy and many low plants lay submissively on their sides in deference to the rain. I turned sideways digging the sides of my shoes gently into the hill, as you would skis into snow. When I reached the bottom my whole world opened up. Both river and locusts filled me with sound. The trees were blessings, nodding to me in kindness. Birds sang and I was alone at last. I was home.
I sat on a flat spot near the base of a looming American Sycamore, its majestic white branches filling my eyes with light. I looked out on the water. The completeness of moving stream filled me and calmed me. Underneath the locust roar, I focused on the river alone and drank in its music.
Closing my eyes, I focused first on the deepest tones only, trying to locate and picture them by pitch and speed. Then, after turning my head toward the place where I imagined them to be, I opened my eyes to receive an actual view of the sound source. There it was, a hollow, a deep place; a large rock creating space on its downstream side, where water could rush in and eddy around in the depths, creating those deeper notes. I closed my eyes again and heard the slippery ripple of the surface currents, sounding smooth and creamy. When I opened my eyes to see them, my solar plexus fluttered at the sight accompanying that sound. I felt a physical wave traveling through my middle. The currents looked velvet, softer even than the sound itself, moving silkily downstream like one large blanket of motion mixed in with bubbling staccatos where small stones and shallows sharpened the water’s flow.
The river is so complicated, I thought, yet how pure in purpose. Movement is everything. I picked up some stones and began tossing them, one by one, into the water. Each one made a sound, disappeared, and then left behind the proverbial chain of ripples. I tried to wait until every sign of the ripples had disappeared before throwing another stone, but it became impossible to determine when the effects of one stone had ceased. With slow-moving eyes, I followed the little waves out from their center toward the bank at my feet until they joined with small plants, sticks and roots. Here, I thought, would be the place where the effects of my stone stopped. But as a ripple met one little plant, it caused the plant to bob and sway making an insect fall off into the water and a leaf to droop fully under the accumulated weight of tiny after-waves.
I realized there was no end to the ripples my stone had made. Maybe endings are imaginary, I thought, something we concoct for a sense of security and conclusion so we can move on. Effects of my stone continued to cascade without end, as plants and insects danced and fell and answered the call of the wave, each thing affecting something else in its path. I imagined the tiny life forms living there, giving themselves up completely to whatever happened next. There seemed to be a pact among them all. Everyone did whatever was most natural to them, and if somebody else crashed into them while doing it, it was all given up to a natural order of causal events. There were no cries of injustice; no stopping of the water in contemplation of its deeds; no vigilante insects building forts against impending displacement or slaughter. The blend was everything. Everyone was in it, doing their parts and giving it all up to destiny.
I began to cry. My failure to be that accepting and relaxed in life rose up in me now as grief. The isolation. My inability to simply join life. My always being a witness, merely. Why could I not participate more with others, especially to those who mattered most? Even the insects were better at this than I. Why wasn’t Carla here at the water’s edge with me? Gems can enter here, insights, beauty. She always talked of beauty, of seeing the beauty all around, in life. I could only see it when I was alone. I felt relaxed here with the flow of the river. I was present and alive, here. Why could I never enter into someone else’s world? Because no one is allowed into mine, I thought. I feel like an intruder into other people’s space, even when invited, and I do not allow anyone into mine.
The tears began to burn down my face. The heat of them was violent on my skin. Skin, I thought. This suffocating casing I’m in! Just like countless times before, everything about my mission today had swelled inside me to reach the skin in hopes of release, burning there at the edge of me but once again stopped short of real connection. It was such an old story. Old and tragic, self-indulgent, small and puny in the grand scheme of things. “I am so stuck in myself!” I said aloud.
My tears burned hotter and the stones I threw became projectiles of frustration assaulting the water. Now I felt separate from everything; from Carla, from Bill, from my intentions, from my need, from nature itself. I was now embarrassed about the entire prospect of attempting to express myself, to speak my truth to Carla and Bill.
As tears receded, my mind took over to figure out what was next. I decided it was completely out of place to want something more with them. I was no longer a teenager needing them the way I had when I was young, but maybe a real friendship with them was not meant to be. Maybe our original connection had served its purpose and there need be nothing more. They had provided a positive escape route from an unbearable home situation. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be anything more than the person they rescued as a teen. They gave me life when I needed it most. Maybe that was enough.
In the shadow of the sycamore I poked a stick back and forth in the dirt. Here in this place, the river continued on without concern for me, my memories or fears. Nature is so indifferent to humans, I thought. The deep hollow places continued making their plopping sounds, the shallows sang their bubbling trills and calmer expanses kept things moving with a broad consistency that held all the other waters in tow as they moved downstream.
What is it about that smooth expanse of silky textured water that calms me so completely, I wondered, and yet mocks me at the same time? It carried all and yet claimed nothing. It just moved. A person could walk into the river, put their head under, take a deep underwater breath, and the river would simply carry them downstream along with everything else. No difference. This was the Little Miami River, cutting across Ohio on its way to the great Ohio River. It ran behind Bill and Carla’s house, holding them in its embrace. I liked it here. This river was much older than I and would continue its route long after I was gone. What should it care for me? Yet it joined me like an old friend and challenged me to be as consistent and true. A call too demanding for the likes of me. Preferring safety rather than the risk of speaking my hard truth, my thoughts turned to a rationale of resignation. Maybe some other day, I thought. I’m not up to the task. I will just be the quiet fixture I have always been with them and we will continue on.

I brushed dirt off my hands, stood up, swept off my pants and, turning back to the water before leaving, I noticed a vine curled deliberately around a young tree. It clung continuously, choosing a single branch for support, and when there was nothing left to cling to, it edged its way boldly into the air, striking out on its own. A little “Hmmph” escaped my throat as I turned to leave, thinking of myself as that vine, clinging for life to things that were stronger than me, but always in private, alone. I gave the water and the tree a last glance and turned to make my ascent.”