The peaceful rustle of a river; there is nothing in the world quite like it. This is my very first encounter with a river, and yet, I feel so familiar to the sound, like it’s a part of me. I could sit here for days, sinking in the cool air, listening to the soft rush of this beautiful body of water. My pencil runs out of a piece of led and I cast it aside without a care, thinking nothing of it. Then a feeling comes over me, that I cannot leave this place in any worse condition than how I first came upon it. This powerful thought runs through my mind as I swiftly retrieve the piece of pencil led from the ground before it gets swept away by the peaceful, yet altogether unrelenting, river. I imagine the dry sand upon which I’m sitting, the softest sand from my memories, to be in envy of the sweetly saturated soil at the river’s bank, basking in the short, quickly moving tide.
    How so much ignorance of mine has been swept away into nonexistence by this river, that just by observing it I am enlightened and in sudden awe. This particular spot, which highly resembles an ocean, intrigued me above any other space I could be spending my time. The ripples of the water seem to be running in every direction possible, gliding with surprising ease over a curiously placed peninsula-like sand bar. As I throw several pebbles at this peculiar land mass, some sink through its fine, soft exterior, while others are carried away into this relatively vast expanse of water.
    It truly is a captivating experience–to watch an insect hovering just above the river’s surface. It is barely a feat if I were to touch the surface and let the water caress over my skin, but this little fellow, who is easily one millionth my size, would prove to have a far deadlier experience. It is pulled into the raging water and drowned within a matter of seconds. The poor helpless thing. But alas, such is the survival of the fittest. Make one adverse choice and you could very well be in the gnat’s predicament.
    Here, as I am observing erosion at its most feeble form, I find myself wondering about rivers as living, breathing entities. Do they have any particular reason to act as they do, or are they simply reacting to the wills of the laws of nature: wind, sun and gravity? Do they maliciously pull these infinitesimal stones off of the tiny shore and volley them about to destinations unknown? Or are they merely acting on a whim? When rivers grow to be high and violent, as if from a storm, is it their intent to pull down trees with them? Or is all of nature just a single, unified force, working together?
    Here’s something we haven’t seen here for many seasons: trees sprouting up, and they’re green. Among all this eyesore of a dead brush forest, there is greenery and lush (or, at least, as lush as it possibly gets around here) life. It is one of life’s lessons, that the weaker must die in order to allow the stronger to thrive. Is this true? Is this what I’m witnessing right now, before my eyes?
         Speaking of “now,” I’d say that “now” it is time for a change of scenery.
    
    After some careful maneuvering, and sure footing, walking upstream has only minorly inconvenienced me. Now I am engulfed by the endearing whooping and whistling of an unseen bird nearby. At this slightly higher altitude, the wind continues to blow through my hair and in the opposite direction of the ever so calmly flowing river.
    As I sit and stare at the mesmerizing bubbles on the water, I glance below the surface where the sand is still visible. The life under this shallow river is constantly in motion, and it reminds me of how prone humans are to change their own environment. Though it may seem less significant, water is capable of just as much destruction as man has proven to be. Though, now thinking about it more deeply, the water isn’t really destroying anything. It only moves around the countless grains of sand and small rocks to another place, slowly and patiently changing the natural world around it. While mercilessly “destroying,” as we may see fit to term it that, the water is also creating new life, life that had probably never seemed possible in these previous years of unrelenting drought. Now I notice, to my left, how much this promising season of rain has created so much beauty in such an unlikely place. The whistling bird continues to sing while the clovers, tall grass, and some of the tiniest white and yellow flowers imaginable, blow in compliance with the wind.
    I gaze on, pitifully glancing at some dead tree remnants holding strong against the current that has caught a plastic wrapper of something on its stem. The other trees that did not survive the storms are also being strangled, but with dead leaves. Will they hold on and make it? Or will it just be a matter of time until even the waning strength of this river pulls them to their long awaited demise? Turning my attention once more to the river and the soft sand below, I notice that even during this short tangent of mine, the water has once again shifted the sand drastically into another formation.
    The sun sets rather quickly on my observation time and it is no longer glaring in the corner of my eye. At this moment I notice something of a “fork” in this river, the result of a raised mass of sand that has split the remainder of this river in two. One side of the river, the side I’m sitting near, has several dead pieces of shrubbery, potentially obstructing the free flow of the river. The fork tine to the south, however, seems to flow on very smoothly and ends a quarter mile farther down than its northern counterpart. This brings a very interesting question to mind: do our lives act as rivers, flowing in no particular order until we are cast onto one of two paths? Which path do we take, and how do we know at the turning point which one is the safer and freer path with less obstacles? Will we ever know what lies ahead or where our own river ends? Not likely; not until we reach the end will we ever find out.
    Here we are, the human race–able to constantly alter the flow of our own rivers, able to change our surroundings–yet we still don’t have a clue how to interpret the many great wonders of our world. Science, mathematics, art history… Do they really explain the nature around us? My last glance upstream before I head home fixes upon a large tree, the grandest, most lush tree available for my viewing pleasure for miles. I’ve tried to reach him, to walk up to him and sit beside him and shake his hand; but if I were to make it to reach the beautiful tree, I would’ve gotten caught in the endless flow of the river. All I wanted was to ask him a question: we humans spend our whole lives trying to decipher and figure out the mysteries of the world–how to be successful, live long, and attain more information than any before us could. Wise tree, how is it that you are successful and flourishing healthily even amidst all this drought?
    I didn’t receive an answer from him, but one thing’s for sure: he’s got it figured out.