55: “Since we are here . . .”
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy,” Chapter 11 concludes
“Since we are here, at this late point in the river’s course,” he said, “let’s begin here. In that direction, the river flows on, toward the sea, where it dies. What does it mean to say that the river dies? It dissipates, it mingles its waters with the vastness of the sea, it loses its identity, it ceases to exist as a river, although—” (He drew the word out and pointed his finger into the air and then waited until Raskol and I were leaning forward to hear what would come next before going on.) “—although it does not cease to exist as water. It loses its form, but something of it remains: its substance. And then it is released from the sea. It evaporates. Evaporation, boys, is the exaltation of water. It rises, free of the tug of all that is low and base and mean, and it rises further, leaving all its dirt and impurities behind. It is purified. It is distilled! It drifts as tiny particles among other tiny particles. It is water, but it is not differentiated from the air. It is of the air, but it is not the air. It has no identity, no self. It is united with all creation. In this state, it approaches as near as anything may in these times to the blissful primeval chaos. And then, little by little, it joins together with its companion particles in clouds. Clouds. Big, fluffy clouds. What do they look like? Lambs. Big, fluffy lambs. And from clouds comes what?”
“Rain?” I offered.
“Right,” he said, and I felt pretty proud of myself. “Rain. And the rain washes over us like what?”
“Like what?” I asked, stalling.
“Yes, like what?” he asked. “Think. If the clouds are like lambs, then the rain is like what from lambs?”
I reddened. I thought I knew the answer, but I wasn’t sure how to put it to a grown-up. “Urine?” I whispered.
“Blood!” he shouted. “The rain washes over us as if it were the blood of lambs. From the old lambs the new lambs are born, and the blood of the old will become the blood of the new—”
“I’ve heard some of this before,” I tossed in, brightening—but he kept right on rolling, and I kept quiet.
“Rainwater is the newborn, the reborn, the babe of the water cycle. It freshens the earth, as each new birth freshens us, brings hope to all of us stuck here in misery, mud, muck, and mire. It is a new beginning. It drips from the leaves of the forest. It washes the city sidewalks. It runs into the mountain rivulet and the city gutter. It gathers with the runoff from other leaves and sidewalks, and it becomes what?”
“A flood,” I suggested, pretty sure of myself.
“A stream,” he cried, rolling right on, “the childhood of a river. And the stream flows on and it picks up dirt and mud and bits of dead and decaying animals, and it is fouled by sewage and tainted by young boys who piss into it, just as young boys and girls are tainted and spoiled by their experiences. And tributaries, other streams, spill into it and swell it, and what do they stand for?”
I really wanted to get another one right. “Eating?” I suggested.
“Sexual contact!” he roared. “The bodily oils that rub off other people. Contact with the world of other bodies, other odors, other fluids.”
He leaned back against the tree, satisfied with himself. Raskol and I got up. It was time for us to get going again.
“Thanks for the sandwiches,” said Raskol.
“Don’t mention it,” said the fisherman.
“And thanks for the conversation,” I added.
He pointed at me with a long and callused finger. As we shoved off, he said, “You just remember that life is bigger than a river, and much more complicated. Of all that life is, only a person’s childhood is anything like a river. For the essence of a river, like the essence of childhood, is a moving on, from one place to another. And if the essence of a river is its flowing on, its moving toward a destination, the essence of the sea is its tidal vacillation, its leaning now this way and now that way and going nowhere. Although most of childhood is like a river, a flowing on toward somewhere, toward being grown up, much of being grown up is like the sea, being tugged this way and that and going nowhere.”
We pushed the boat into the current, and we were swept a little way downstream before we laid into our paddling, overcame the seaward motion of the water, and began making progress toward the source again. When we had gone on upstream for some distance, I heard the fisherman call out, “And another thing—if this journey of yours is going to have any metaphoric value at all, you should, I think, be going the other way.”
[to be continued on Thursday, July 29, 2021]
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