I spent Memorial Day weekend on the banks of the Nueces River. It’s the river that runs through my life. It’s a beautiful river made even better for the memories generated along its banks. I’ve seen it flow in all its stages from flood to drought and in between. And what got me thinking about the river today is how, when the water level is low, it flows underground, disappearing into the rocks to keep on going. And I thought there was a metaphor there about grief.

But the river of life isn’t all sadness, so the metaphor didn’t quite stick and that was a little disappointing. And all this came up as I was thinking about the bits of sadness in my life tied to loss and how it eventually has to go underground, because at some point it becomes something a person has to bear alone. If you drink too much from the well of sympathy eventually it will run dry because healing is a natural and expected process, and friends and family only have so much to give, and there’s another water metaphor and now I’m really mixing it up.

So, let’s go back to the river. Even in married life I didn’t let my sadness or unhappiness boil to the surface anytime it showed up. Mostly, it was done in the spirit of tranquility and a desire to keep and spread the peace. Because, oddly enough, people don’t always want to know what you’re thinking. They like and want happy people around them because they’ve got their own problems. And that can be an interesting road to navigate. But I did pretty well. And that’s it for today’s collection of odd thoughts and observations. Not the tidiest wrap up, but it will have to do.