Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
This article was posted to Jayber on 4 October 2005 by to the following categories: Feature, Stories.
An audio version of this article is also available.
I went for a walk today over lunch. I put one foot in front of the other and slowly meandered through Minneapolis' North Loop, along 5th Avenue, past the condominiums, and down to West River Road on the Mississippi.
I go to the river for one reason: to run away--and today was not unusual.
I realized a few things today. Rivers for me mean three things:
Constancy because the river never stops; it's always there, moving and flowing, but static in its location. It just doesn't change that much. It hangs out, and does the same thing day-in, day-out.
Momentum because of the river's current. Some rivers have strong currents, and others have weak currents. But regardless, if I were to jump in and lay lifeless doing the dead-man's-float, I'd be carried in the direction of the current. It's just part of the definition of a river.
Restoration mainly because the river carries sediment (containing nutrients) downstream, depositing it in a new place. This is nothing new to you or me, this is the way it is.
Each of these characteristics of rivers has meaning for me in personal and spiritual ways. I could talk about this in length. My thoughts today, however, were more interested in the fact that that I realized that when I find myself at rivers, I'm usually alone, stressed out, and running from something.
I've been feeling oppressed lately by work, school, and personal stuff. It's all been feeling horribly heavy. It doesn't help that I'm generally a weak and whiny wimp.
The time during the day when I feel most of this pressure is when I wake up in the morning, and when I'm at work. Usually, it comes in the form of me thinking to myself: "Crap, how am I going to get all this done? Where do I even start?"
So, to lead you through my thought process, at times like this, it helps me to make lists of things that are causing tension. Some of the things I make lists of:
Most days, I get enough stuff out of my head that I can get some small amount of useful work done. Today, it was more difficult. It seemed that no matter how much stuff I wrote down, no matter how many lists I made, there was always more. It seemed like I wasn't even making a dent.
Fortunately for me, I remembered What About Bob? and decided to go to the river to take a "vacation from my problems." When I came back to work after lunch, I felt rejuvenated and ready to tackle things at my own pace. Why was this? It's relatively obvious, but why didn't I know it before? It's like one of those things that they teach you when you're a little kid, and you take it for granted: "rest, and you can work better."
So that was my miniaturize revelation for the day. The spot I found by the river is only a 5-minute walk from work, so it'll be easy to go back and make it a quick trip.
Do any of you have anything that you enjoy doing to get a better handle on life? Places you go? Things you do to rest?
Thanks to Heavy for getting me thinking about the Mississippi.
I had very similar experiences in college but it involved walking in the woods instead of a river. I also was stressed and overwhelmed but it was calming and refreshing to me to enter the woods. God also spoke to me there in tender and encouraging ways.
Cool dad. I didn’t know that.