The River Before Me

[Guest guest]

The River Before Me

I think of my life as a river, and these painful years of illness as

a high mountain pass, full of sharp edges and hard turns, that my

life must cross over, to reach its destination.

I try to ask:

Right now,

As my lower gut rumbles and strains,

And my lungs are nearly flattened

By the effort of breathing,

How much farther to the top?

How much longer till gravity

Works with me, not against me?

If I let myself see it, really see where I am, would there be

beauty? It seems to me there must be, that in life there is always

suffering, and there is always beauty, and they are not separate,

not really.

Now this is the point where my mind, which runs its own winding

course, would normally go off about all the ways that beauty and

suffering might transform each other, but that is not going to

happen tonight, because I really am fighting gravity, and in this

fight my only chance of surviving is respecting my opponent.

At certain turns in its course, life cries out in wonder `I was old

and now I am young. I was dying and now I am being born.'

Listen for those gasps of delight, rising off the water of your

being. Listen and you when you hear them try to catch them as a

shell catches the sound of the sea. For just as surely as a shell

can be stolen from the shore and taken hundreds or thousands of

miles from the source of its being, your life can be taken so far

from deep bliss that memory will be your only comfort.

Our memories cannot be counted, they are not coins to be stacked up

and measured or weighed in some industrial scale. Memory is not a

table in the counting house. Memory, as all forgetful people know,

is NOT to be counted on, much less taken for granted, but must be

courted like a lover, wooed and won over with tokens, gifts, and

praise.

I cannot see the river before me.

Sometimes we can't see what lies ahead because its path is hidden in

a valley hidden beyond the next rise.

Sometimes we can't see what lies ahead because it is not our destiny

to move any farther than we have already come.

Sometimes we can't see what lies ahead because we've gotten turned

around and are in fact looking back on the way we came.

Sometimes we can't see what lies ahead because it is already here,

flowing all around us.

I cannot see the river before me.