The Long Road Home Part 2

I begin this blog by sending thanks to the ever wise and beautiful Paul Boshears who reached deep into my last blog and pulled out what I was truly trying to say. A few things that I left out of my last blog that Paul pointed out are that the heart is not a finite thing, but rather an entity (though that is so not the right word) that is at once tangible and fleeting, controllable and chaotic. It is, as Paul suggests, something more fluid. His analogy of a heart as belonging to the "vast ocean of humanity" points to the depth and the complexity of our emotions, and does a good job at framing where I sit today, or rather, where I swim. For the last few weeks I've been treading water through a new river. I haven't been fighting the current, but I haven't been allowing it to take me with it either.

If it is indeed a river that I find myself in, moving and mingling, constantly on my way to something new, and always connected to this great life force, the term "river teeth" comes to mind. One of my favorite authors, David James Duncan, has a collection of short stories titled "RiverTeeth," and in it he explains that river teeth are the fallen debris that litter the bottom of rivers. This debris then lets some of the river sediment through, all the while capturing more debris until the pressure of the water finally breaks through and frees that which was once stuck.

And maybe that is another analogy for broken hearts. Maybe the debris that is first taken by the river teeth only to become river teeth, might contain some of those who are weighed down and venture too close to the bottom, to the murkiness... those that have trouble enjoying the the flow. After all, the river teeth are constantly struggling against the flow. But I feel that I am taking this too far and have too many other fish to fry at the moment. But again, that might wait for another entry. For now I have just finished my first week of classes. My hopes and fears, for the most part, have all been proven to be well founded. I came here prepared and was not disappointed. I look out my living room window and watch the sky, split into various shades of pink and gray and blue. They tell us that a storm is coming and to be prepared. Tomorrow I'll go stock up on some bottled water.