Thinking like a river.

Several years ago, I wrote a weekly column for one of the newspapers in Colorado Springs. While the column focused on philanthropy and generosity, the editors gave me considerable leeway in the content I would produce every week.

I wanted to share one of those columns with you; it popped into my mind last night out of nowhere, so I dug it out of the computer to include on the blog. It seems appropriate for this time of life.

Here it is:

Ever feel like your brain is overloaded? Short circuits sparking, systems groaning, interference rising, coherence dropping. My remedy? A virtual vacation, thinking back to good  times. I need one this week, so here it is...

Reverie: I dip my oars into the San Juan River, pull once, pull twice, and then feather my blades. Subtle pushes and pulls on each oar whisper to me about the current, but I'm rusty at translating the language of the river. It's the first day of a long trip, and I'm not dialed in to the river just yet.

I haven't rowed a raft on a big river for a year or so, so I feel a bit awkward at first.

Ahead, I watch my friend Will glide through rocks and rapids with smooth oar strokes, using just the right amount of energy to slide past rocks and slip into the standing waves. He’s been doing this for decades, and his easy familiarity with the river is simultaneously admirable and enviable. So, I watch and learn…

I’m on vacation, but haven’t yet been able to “vacate” those spaces in my brain that are jammed with work-related stuff. I’m hoping time on this river…once we’re floating…will help me push the baggage of the past aside and allow me to just be in this moment. Because this moment is worth enjoying: family, friends, desert landscapes, enough geology and archeology for a lifetime, good food, and plenty of adult beverages.

All I have to do is stay in the river, knowing that the nature of a river is to carry us effortlessly downstream. Simple, really….. steer the raft, avoid the rocks (Will yanks my chain… ‘only hit the little ones, will ya?’), and let the river do the rest.

Writers and artists for centuries have used rivers as metaphors…for time, for life, for history, for all sorts of imagery. No wonder:  rivers are powerful, an inexorable flow relentlessly pulled by gravity. The imagery can be useful in everyday life: If we go with the flow, life is good; if we fight the river, if we fight against the current, the river will exhaust us.

I resolve to remember the image of the river when I return to daily life, to use the natural flow of events and energy instead of fighting against it.

But for now, I’m just going to throw my worries over the side of the raft, and watch them float away. We’re out of cell phone coverage. Email is limited to ‘pee-mail’ sorted by coyotes watching us from the shore. The only meetings scheduled for tonight are “what’s for dinner?” and “when will the moon rise?”

Camp is around the next bend... i dip my oars, pull once, pull twice, and go with the flow.

The canyon of my favorite river, the Colorado, taken during a recent trip.