Great Room Window
I love this island.
Tonight, on either side of me, the East River shifts comfortably in its channel.
I love the look of bridge lights streaked and dancing across a black river. I love the sound of no cars at all except the dull, steady roar of highway driving deep in the distance. When most people hold a conch shell up to their ears, they hear the sound of the ocean. This is what I hear.
What does it mean that a river always brings me more peace than the ocean? It always has. Why?
Maybe it’s because I never saw the ocean until I was a man full-grown. Because I spent the happiest moments of my childhood in boats and on banks, and not on beaches.
Sometimes I worry that that’s where I left them. But then, that's melodramatic, isn't it...
A lot of the people I’ve met from these parts are well experienced in the art of sailing. They troll out to open water, so far from the land that they can’t even see the shore; they spread the sail, smell the sea, and let the wind do the work.
Where I come from, a boat needs a motor.
On a river, there isn’t any use for a sail. If you’re on a river and you’re moving, you’re moving somewhere, and you’re going there because you’ve decided to. Even if you’re going with the current, you’d better have that motor running. Everyone knows: if you leave your journey down a river strictly up to Mother Nature, she’s likely to run you straight into a pile of rocks.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that a river won’t take you for a ride if you pay close enough attention to its currents and eddies and know how to work a gas bar.
Tonight, on either side of me, the East River shifts comfortably in its channel.
I love the look of bridge lights streaked and dancing across a black river. I love the sound of no cars at all except the dull, steady roar of highway driving deep in the distance. When most people hold a conch shell up to their ears, they hear the sound of the ocean. This is what I hear.
What does it mean that a river always brings me more peace than the ocean? It always has. Why?
Maybe it’s because I never saw the ocean until I was a man full-grown. Because I spent the happiest moments of my childhood in boats and on banks, and not on beaches.
Sometimes I worry that that’s where I left them. But then, that's melodramatic, isn't it...
A lot of the people I’ve met from these parts are well experienced in the art of sailing. They troll out to open water, so far from the land that they can’t even see the shore; they spread the sail, smell the sea, and let the wind do the work.
Where I come from, a boat needs a motor.
On a river, there isn’t any use for a sail. If you’re on a river and you’re moving, you’re moving somewhere, and you’re going there because you’ve decided to. Even if you’re going with the current, you’d better have that motor running. Everyone knows: if you leave your journey down a river strictly up to Mother Nature, she’s likely to run you straight into a pile of rocks.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that a river won’t take you for a ride if you pay close enough attention to its currents and eddies and know how to work a gas bar.
posted by Michael Deuser at 11:02 PM
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