Topical Guide 40
Mark Dorset
Life, Metaphors and Similes for
It has often seemed to us that life, in several respects at any rate, is much like a river.
Susanna and Elizabeth Christensen, Boating on the Bolotomy
Porky poked me on the shoulder and asked, “It’s a lot like life, isn’t it? A bus ride, that is.” . . .
“It seems to me,” I put forth, “that life is more like clam chowder.” . . .
“What about the grains of sand that collect at the bottom of the bowl?” . . .
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,” admitted Porky.
“Those may be the dark, gritty bits at the bottom of any life that one would really rather forget,” I suggested. “Any dark, gritty bits at the bottom of your life, Porky?”
“Well—”Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
Life—is rather like a tin of sardines—we’re all of us looking for the key.
Beyond the Fringe, “Take a Pew”
Arcadia, Eden
In its early stretches, the Bolotomy is narrow and shallow, barely a stream, but at one point, suddenly and surprisingly, the river broadens and deepens, and for a short stretch it is an idyllic swimming spot. When I was a boy, I often rode my bicycle to this spot from my parents’ house. There the water was pellucid and cold, the bottom was covered with small rounded stones, and the bank on one side was flat and grassy. This spot was supposed to be a secret. I was taught its location by a neighbor, an older boy who later broke my foot for me by jumping on it. To reach the swimming spot, one rode or walked along a well-used trail to a certain place where the sides of the trail seemed to be closed by impenetrable bushes; then one stopped as if to tie a shoe, looked over one’s shoulder and, if no one was in sight, parted one pair of bushes carefully to open the way to another trail, a narrow, damp one that led to the secret spot.
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
And now, as I write this, some time after youth, I’m on an island in Bolotomy Bay, surrounded by the river’s water, though by the time it reaches this island the river water is no longer part of the river. From where I work, I can look back across the bay and a little way up the Bolotomy, back toward my beginnings.Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy”
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