I've known rivers

A few years ago, I used to dedicate a three-hour drive to fly-fish the drift-less regions of Southern Minnesota on an almost weekly basis. I do some of my best thinking while I am driving alone in the half-light of the morning and beauty of the countryside-- back then was no different. I would think about lots of things, my past and my future, which girl I’d call that evening, if I’d ever fall in love, or get married, why I drank so much, the list goes on and on, and so it was especially apropos that these things were being examined in the drift-less region of the Midwest. I was exactly that, drift-less, but with every mile spent in that beautiful part of the country and every, 10 and 2, cast and false-cast came clarity.

For those of you unfamiliar with Minnesota, it is a mostly flat region of the mid-west, bursting with endless prairies and broken up with scatterings of forests and beautiful lakes.

The flat prairies were the descendents of a massive glacial movement that scoured themselves across the surrounding lands and rendered them flat, that is, until the glaciers came to Southern Minnesota. The term drift-less comes from the lack of glacial drift in this region and so the area maintained its rolling hills although it did so, not without its pound of flesh.

The area was often subject to catastrophic bursts of glacial dams that carved out rivers and valleys over night. Hard limestone was broken and smoothed over by millions of gallons of muddy water and gritty glacial sediments creating the bluffs and rivers of which I waded into unaware of their dramatic past.

And of course during those times I fell in love and out of it just as quickly; there was the medical student who always fell asleep when we kissed, the beautiful girl who lived with her brother-who happened to be very over-protective and gay and happened to be father to a baby, the old high-school sweet hearts, and on and on… Like I said, they were my drift-less days.

Some of those folks, were like tiny prairie streams, they lacked depth, and as such, produced little or no fish and certainly weren’t worth the effort spent walking down their banks and getting to know the stream.

But there are also rivers I’ve known who are deep and beautiful. A stream, a good stream of course is more than just water running over rocks. No—a good stream comes from something beautiful. In the Southern streams of the drift-less area, good streams generally come from underground springs. At their source, you can bend down and literally drink right from the water with no worries. And they are constantly shaped and altered by their surroundings, limestone and lush, green undergrowth help to keep out the bad stuff, chemicals and acid and sediment that muddy the clarity of the stream. And they go deeper than that, even if you were to jump right into the water, waders and all, you still wouldn’t see that there is water underneath the water, underground streams that extend beyond the banks of the river and deep, deep into the earth, but you’d fall in love just the same without a complete understanding of them.

That’s the thing isn’t it? We are all the product of catastrophe and confluences of events that made us into who we are. We are the product of tough things, grit and muddy water, broken dreams and diverted streams… and for some, we are spread out upon the flood plain, shallow pools and ashy rock. But for those fortunate enough, our channels are cut deeper and banks more green from these immense moments and we are made stronger and more beautiful.

And so it is, with all the people I’ve ever loved, romantically or otherwise. I wade into their company and enjoy the songs in their babbling and murmurs and I try to understand the bend in the stream, the cadence of water running over rock, their whirls and splashes, their dance over prairies and forests and into my heart but often times fail to understand how they’ve come to be.

So that’s my hope for the new rivers I meet along the way and those I hope to revisit-- to wade in and examine their history and rhythm, their cascades and confluence, eddies and effluence. And I imagine if I think long enough and practice matching my rhythm to the cadence of the water that fish might rise and with it a little more understanding about this place and where it came from and the path it had to take to get here.

"I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

~Langston Hughes

Love, Understanding & Knowledge

One thing that always resonated with me in "A River Runs Through It" is the idea of completely loving someone without completely understanding. There's no doubt, it's immensely difficult to understand choices the people I love the most make or even understand the how's and whys of their life. Near the end of A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean's father is scraping for more answers about his son's death and ways to understand and know his son better. For me, of course I feel this way about many, many, many of my friends and family but none more than my father.

For the random person who stumbles upon this blog some 7.5 years ago my father passed in something that shook me deep, how couldn't it? Everyone will go through this shaking at some point in their life-- death is an inevitable fact of life and it is a way to reassess and sometimes completely reorder your life. That certainly happened to me and I have no doubt that I could write 1000 pages on that alone. Life is short, beautiful and fleeting. There is still no doubt in my mind that I'd give every single thing I own, EVERY POSSESSION, EVERYTHING, for one day, one hour, one fleeting moment to be with my father again. That's not hyperbole, and I hope for those who might read this that they think long and hard about those most important to them and hold them tight tonight and express a little bit of their love for them as we make our brief revolutions around the sun.

That said, this is going to be short, and quick since I need to get up real early tomorrow. I just want to start becoming more disciplined about writing in this damned blog. When someone you care about so deeply is gone you look, scrape and scrounge for anything and everything to know them better, or at least I have. And so, while I was scraping to put together my taxes for this year I found some old family albums and a small letter from a childhood friend of my father's... My father went to a boys college in Sri Lanka and spoke about it just about every damned day. He'd always tell me about his college's motto, "Disce Aut Discede" Learn or Depart and sing the old class song when he had one too many glasses of wine and felt especially nostaglic. So, I'll transcribe this letter and in a later post write about it. Maybe one day you'll stumble upon one of your parents love letters to each other or letters to a friend... I have those too, but, things so personal and lovely deserve to be preserved and cherished for those folks who loved each other so deeply. I'll say it's reassuring that my parents dealt with the same sort of wonderful, trivial problems as anyone else and that they also shared a romance and love for each other that you'd hope for yourself when you're in the fits of love and courtship... Ok Here's the letter, written on a typewriter on some nice paper from Sri Lanka:

Date: 29th February, 1988

Dear Chandi old chap,


Where the hell have you been all these years ever since we left college? Not a bloody beep from you for over 20 years. Heard a lot abotu you form our "Class of 56" bulletin - including your by-pass heart operation. I hope you have recovered completely and are back to near normal by now. Take care of yourself 'putha' because as far s I can remember you have been having these "heart problems" even when you were college.

How on earth did you end up in the States? The last we heard was that you were somewhere in the Middle East. Anyway Chandi, please do drop a line anytime you find the time as I would very much life to know how you are doing both health and carer wise and also details about your love life, family and kids. As you will notice from this letter head, I am still with the family business. Yusuf is doing his own business (construction) and Shiraz is also with the family business (Estates). I am married to Fawziya (Fish's sister) do you remember Fish? We have three children, eldest son will be 18 in April daughter who will be 8 in April and smallest son who is 6 years old. The latest model will be out in August - that number 4 on the list. Can you or have you beaten that? Yusuf has two sons - twins born in U.K.

Sourjah is here from Brisbane. Incidentally his father expired today. There is absolutely no change in him after all these years.

Well, Chandi as I said before, do drop a line and lets keep in tuch if possible. Also look after yourself and like Dudley used to say (refering to college motto) do'nt depart too soon.

With kind regards and rememberances,

Your buddy,

Moiz

MOIZ SETHWALA


(with that folks... remember to hold onto those people you love as tight as you can, take a mental image and remember how beautiful they are.)

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

~Yeats

Picture: I'm the chubby kid in the red overalls my Dad is holding onto, my Sister looks absolutely terrified if you can see the picture. This is actually the rare photo of me >1 (yes, I am THAT big as a 1 year old) that I am smiling... the only other time they caught a photo of it... I was wearing a baptismal dress... I don't know if it's because I enjoyed cross dressing or because I was cleansed of my SIN! That said, about 15 minutes before this picture I was sobbing my eyes out in this parade and clawing at my Dad and the elephant to get down.