Never the Same River
I immigrated to America days before 2020 ended, the pandemic's second wave at high tide, anxiety pooling. My new home with my wife was Bend, in an apartment surrounded by soaring pines and vast exclamations of ancient lava. How fortunate I was to find the Deschutes River so close. Now I have a daily pilgrimage spot on the riverside where I can sit in the afternoon, out of the way of the dog walkers and loud talkers. I sit and watch the river, the wide and boulder-slashed river running shallow in ragged silken currents. In the first few days, I followed a bald eagle patrolling upstream, its head bearing a silken crown, its wings dark like the shaded pools. Gusts of wind turn the river’s top, spilling the sun’s silver jewels over misdirected waves to sparkle and sink. Late March and the river is clotted with March brown mayflies, hooked by spring’s bait. Dangling bodies fly in a panic of near-useless wings struggling in the currents of the air, blown about the water and into the bushes to mingle desire with dust. Here is where I meditate, the emerging sun of spring kaleidoscoping my closed eyelids, purple to orange. When I open my eyes, there is a different river before me: darker, slower, older. It takes me time to adjust and head home. Changed, as Heraclitus predicted, and thanks to the river, never the same river, but I am content to keep following the current. This Is Now Newly immigrated to America, I arrived in Bend—my new home. This is not my first time to either Bend or America. I have long been in awe of American luxuries: the waste disposal units, free refills in restaurants, ice cube dispensers in massive fridge freezers, RVs the size of apartments, bulk buying in Costco, and many other things we don’t have in my hometown of Epsom, in tiny old England. However, it is another feature of Bend that’s missing in Epsom that I love the most. People here in Bend say, "hi." They smile. They acknowledge your existence. Complete strangers wave at each other as if they know each other. You’re in Bend. So, yeah, we do know each other. This level of communal mutual pleasure in each other’s existence is unheard of in my hometown, famous for salts and horse racing, on the edge of the great metropolis of indifference. To smile at a stranger would be considered odd, provocative even. Back in joyless Epsom, we all know we share the same space, but we’d rather not talk about it. It’s certainly nothing to be pleased about. Published in the Central Oregon Book Project, 2022.
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AuthorI have had short stories published in Bad Idea Magazine, Black Market Re-View, Brand Literary magazine, Dreamcatcher, Internations, Gloom Cupboard Print Edition, Pens on Fire, The Writing Shift and Zero Flash. In 2009 I had a mini-memoir published by Harper-Collins in Not Quite What I Was Planning. Archives
August 2023
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