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We can travel our river's course, drifting freely as on skis down a slope of movement, vanquishing the moguls in life's flowing stream as we move to the rhythms of the river -- a consistency of reality, endurance, and contentment.
This river, our river, needs nothing from us in return. Who would challenge a water lily's bloom, introduce a threat to a trumpeter swan, interrupt the river's flow, or add a hue from chemical foam to the rainbow display in a canoe paddle's splash?
We would.
The wind, commonly from the north-northwest, funnels into a course -- the one the river carved -- moving through the trees, cattails, and reeds, causing them to sway, then across lily pads, around bends, and into bays.
This day, I discerned five different wind patterns sculpted on the water's surface: waves just short of whitecaps, a chop but with no roll, major ripples, then minor ones sufficient only to distort a clear reflection. Lastly, a surface that is calm.
In open portions of the river, the wind creates waves that move against the shore, creating slapping sounds. But, in the protection of its bends, those waves are diminished -- no longer do they slap. Instead, they tuck themselves under logs, slide under vegetation, and slip into crevices among the rocks and stones, where they ricochet back upon themselves, turning a slap into a gurgling, chuckling sound.
I pause to listen, feel the wind, hear the sounds, absorb the comfort in the meanderings of the river.
Recently a man shot a boy who rang his doorbell, another man shot a girl playing hide-and-seek on his property, a third murdered a young woman who mistakenly entered his driveway.
Made fearful by a world of distorted news, these men apparently believed they could protect themselves by maintaining an armed intrauterine existence. Had they emerged from their hate and isolation to commune with their victims, those young people may have brought them joy.
Perhaps, if they had glided on a river, listened to the sounds, engaged with the beauty of its streams of life and their diversity -- maybe then they could have lived such that those young people would have come to no harm from them.
But those opportunities were lost, tied up as they were in so many knots they couldn't float.
The Michigan Legislature recently passed a resolution declaring April 25, 2023 Librarian and Library Workers Day. It's House Resolution 81.
"Whereas Michigan's Librarians and Library workers strive to create inclusive collections and programs, and provide access to information and resources to all members of the community regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socio-economic status ... "
The Resolution goes on to laude the librarians for promoting local connections, fostering a sense of community, and advancing understanding and engagement.
A library is like a river; it nurtures and nourishes.
The Resolution passed.
But 56 state representatives voted against it -- representatives who would have our minds be tied in knots.
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Amy Nowakowski is the coastal project manager for Huron Pines, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose mission is to serve and enhance Northeast Michigan's natural resources. Her office is in Alpena.
Amy has a master's degree in fluvial geomorphology, a study of how rivers shape the world: the interaction between sediment, water, and vegetation in a river catchment and, by extension, a river's interaction with mankind.
Though the river is our friend, sometimes -- as we sometimes do with friends -- we take the river for granted.
Amy's job is not to.
Consider the water cycle: water falls as rain or snow upon the land, sustaining plants and animals, before bringing that benefit to life in creeks, streams, and rivers, then into lakes, and on to oceans. All along the way, the energy of the sun through evaporation and transpiration delivers water as condensation to clouds that the wind carries back to the land in precipitation.
We impact every stage of this cycle and need to keep a careful eye on what we do. Amy helps with that.
Our attention, however, is commonly focused elsewhere -- on some political agenda unrelated to anything real or on an ad for some product such as the one offering a 35% discount if you use the code word "love" when you place your first order.
Jim Johnson wrote a wonderfully informative series about our river that recently appeared in The News.
He wrote of our river's history, informing us of a time before the dams, when sections of the river ran free in whitewater rapids -- some serving as seasonal spawning grounds for many fish species.
He told us of the rapids' thunder and how Thunder Bay took that name.
If I read Jim correctly, implicit in his message is a lament for what we've lost, but also a note of hope that we can learn.
Perhaps we should set our phones down and glide again over those places where the whitewater rapids once ran, allowing the enigmatic force of gravity to carry us along in a cycle powered by the sun. No code word is required and the implied promise of love is more than an introductory come-on.
It's a place where we can feel the universality of life-sustaining rhythms and know, though we paddle solitary vessels, we do not travel alone.
Doug Pugh's "Vignettes" runs monthly. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.