Go as a River

by Shelley Read

The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.

By showing on the surface only a small fraction of her interior, a woman gave men less to plunder.

Just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a single circumstance of a girl’s life erase who she was before.

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

I can’t say exactly what those translucent waters told me. I only know that everything they said was true.

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.