Go as a River

by Shelley Read

At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready.

“Go as a river,” I whispered to her, as Wil might have done, and, I swear, I felt her spirit rise.

Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best.

I would say I had tried, as Wil taught me, to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else, and doing this had delivered me here, with two fists of forest soil in my palms and a heart still learning to be unafraid of itself.