reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: river trail


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if the curves could speak. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

we know its curves well. if they could whisper, they would share the secrets of our conversations – conversations of the last decade – times calm, times fraught.

if the curves could speak, the dirt we have kicked up with our boots would sputter and cough, spilling how many painful moments there have been on this trail, how many times one of us has wept.

if the curves could speak, the underbrush just to the side of what is worn down would rise and wave verdant leaves, singing about our triumphs or the laughter that has ridden the wind just above us.

if the curves could speak, they would talk of the ping-ponging of decisionmaking, decisions discussed, decisions debated, decisions made – all on this trail.

if the curves could speak, they would mournfully tell of regrets, of disappointments, of trauma.

if the curves could speak, they would opine on our opining…of health, of politics, of purpose, of relationship, of faith.

if the curves could speak, they would – with glee – share the tiny goodnesses they had overheard, the learnings they had witnessed, the big abundances they had eavesdropped.

if the curves could speak, they would brush the air with words that describe something fluid, something everchanging, something they have helped to not be rigid.

if the curves could speak, they would wordbubble with every shape and form of love, spoken and shouted, sung and murmured.

if the curves could speak, they would give up our secrets – every last one of them.

but the curves cannot speak. and they hold close our hushed voices, our loud voices, our confusion, our tears, our anger, our laughter.

they could not know how much knowing them has aided us, comforted us, pushed us, reassured us.

and i suppose we could not know how well they know us.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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of being alive. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

when you hike a trail a lot, it becomes a member of the family. like when you recognize something has changed – someone had a haircut, someone has new glasses, someone has lost weight, someone looks tired – it is no different. the trees have leafed, the underbrush has been knocked over, the game trail is tamped down, the may apple has flowered, the wild geranium is prolific, the river is high, the river is low, the turtles have come out, the beaver dam is bigger.

we talk about our river trail a lot because we hike it a lot. though we’d prefer it to be different, we see it more than we see any member of our family.

this particular day – when the sky was a perfect sky-blue, when the river was high enough to cover the logs where the turtles sun, when purple fleabane budded next to its white-daisy-bloom predecessor, when the great blue heron joined the cranes flying the river, when the color green had more hues than any person might imagine – this day was a reminder of how well we knew this trail, its turns, the gifts of the familiar and the magic of the unexpected.

and there is this high spot on the trail where we stand and look out over the meadow, over the marsh, over the river. and i stood – still – looking at where the trees met the sky, all glorious, listening to the sounds on the breeze, feeling the sun on my face and my feet on the ground – standing still – and felt the insanity of being alive.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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no timely manner. [d.r. thursday]

now i understand. at least, i am beginning to understand.

my sweet momma and poppo would linger…watching birds, gazing at flowers, studying the horizon – be it shorefront or mountainside, cityscape or tiny town or rural farmland, slowly taking it in. in the hurry-hurry of my younger years, i would scurry past, noticing but maybe not really.

i am moving slower now. not because i can’t scurry, but because i am choosing to list to the linger side. though we still watch re-runs after re-runs of joey hiking and climbing and backpacking and pitching tents any and everywhere, imagining ourselves in those canyonlands keeping up, imagining ourselves on the pct or the john muir or the colorado trail, i know that our pace would not match the pace of joey or the exuberant younguns on heading somewhere or walking with purpose or the meticulous norwegian xplorer. we would be slower, lingering, lingering. i’m not sure that would get us from point a to point b successfully or in a timely manner, but i’m thinking that our definition of ‘timely manner’ may have to just be different. because now – in the middle of this grand middle age – is different.

for now i want to watch the birds and gaze at flowers up-close. i want to stop and stare, drop to sit on a nearby log and take it in. i want to notice the intricasies of all of it, the undertones, the overtones.

as i look at the close-up of this milkweed trailside i am struck by the layers of detail. it somehow makes me recall decisions between the major chord and the relative minor, a continuum of impact. it makes me think of melodic gestures, a spectrum of color and of grace. a horsehair brush extended from the heights of the universe, painting perfection in the woods. artists’ hands waving paint on canvas, cupping clay on a wheel, flying over the white and black on a piano, coaxing lines that make you weep from a cello. all the same. creation in all its iterations.

on the call pat told me that the music – my music – had harmonics, tuned with the universe, that made her travel. humbling.

for i see that is what my momma and poppo were doing. traveling. they allowed the beauty around them to touch them, to slow them down, convincing them – in all the infinite glory that beauty -and art- can muster – that ‘a timely manner’ was relative, that time was relative. that time spent in a slow linger was precious.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

linger on DAVID’s online gallery