A Spring Fed River

There are rivers born in mountains, high above the earth. There are rivers that spill from lakes filled with spring rain. There are rivers that flow from glaciers, snow, and rainwater, cleaving the earth before them in search of the sea.

My own river rises from the deep wells of nature, from the bedrock of Missouri. A spring fed river is cold and clear, a child of the earth. It remembers its source; its heart in the subterranean halls of stone, cradled by limestone and dolomite. Such a river has a particular smell, a particular feel; there is a memory about it, a memory it carries all the way to the ocean at the end of its path.

On the banks of my river, I set my feet in the water.

I’ve grown up on the banks of this river, making mud pies, swinging on ropes, and canoeing the length of it with coolers of bud light, hi-C, and ham sandwiches. I love the gentle sloping of the south side, the gravel and the straggly brush, filled with sun and songbirds. I love the darkness of the northern bank, where all the trees bend over, reaching for the sun, shielding the river beneath them. There are tangled tree roots twisting and blending into the dark water, there are snakes long and slender, gleaming like ebony, there are reeds and moss and tiny black butterflies flitting from shade to shade. Even the mosquitoes are sacred. I know their buzzing, their paths on the surface of the water, the strange satisfaction of their itching bite, the sickly sweet citronella candles we light as dusk falls over the water.

Today we eat our fill of country fare, loading our plates with hot dogs and baked beans, chili and hobo stew. Around the campfire, the stories are beginning. Granddaddy can remember the Great Depression and long ago County Fairs; Uncle Jim can trace our lineage all the way from Charbonneau of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Womacks are an old breed, with roots deep in the rich Missouri soil. You can still see traces of Indian Blood in their skin, and harsh Scottish features in their craggy faces.

The river sits behind us as the sun sinks slowly in the sky, dancing in the filtered brown of the shallows. Not far upstream a hawk flies over the water, casting a shadow that ripples and vanishes. The steady sound of the current blends with our voices; rural drawls and harsher backwoods dialect together. The tones are striking in their simple honesty, far removed from the hollow, artificial speech of West County. As the evening slowly passes I am swept away in their words, and I shed my own pale accent like a shadow.

The talk turns away from history, spreading into the realities of our lives. Cindy tells us about a guy she’s met dancing at Plumbers’, where David plays in the Timberline band and students of the Farmington School District often go to dances. Janet mentions a squirrel her husband found in a tree at the lumber mill, which she kept for years as a pet. With great passion, Uncle John tells Joe about a huge hunk of meat they came across a few weeks ago at the restaurant. The aunts, comparatively, sit together quietly: Jane looking timid and tired, Julie in her overalls, Janet smelling of cigarettes. Terry describes a recent hunt with his characteristic, bullet-like narrative. “Shot that buck right ‘tween the eyes…” He tells us, “dropped him like a stone.” Sara tells me her old black horse finally died, and that the barn cats have spawned another generation of feral kittens. Somehow the stories of my life – a Valentines Card from Norway, the Acropolis and the Ancient Agora, the Gutenberg Museum, Christmas with Curacao natives – don’t quite flow into the conversation. I do a lot of smiling and listening, fascinated by how tightly and comfortably this world is knit together.

Jim, the patriarch, was a maintenance man at the state mental hospital. David fixes the busses for the local school district. The town’s football star in his glory days, James is a social worker and a counselor at the prison. Carol’s the bank manager – she’s worked her way up from teller in a long life at the bank. Terry was a meter reader for forty years, Weedy was a mailman, and Granddaddy was the ‘city boy’ who left Farmington with Maytag. My dad has tried to explain that he’s a consultant for the automotive aftermarket industry half a dozen times, but they still don’t quite understand just what it is that he does all day.

The crickets begin to sing as things wind down, as I find a lawn chair and stare out over the river. Idly, I flip through the songs on my iPod, searching for something that fits the mood. It’s difficult to match.

“Hey,” says Little Jason, wanting to annoy me. “What are you listening to?”

“It’s called ‘Anima Libera’”, I say, hoping he’ll be confused and run along. “It’s in another language”.

“… You mean… Spanish?”

“Sort of”, I reply, nodding. “It’s Italian.”

“… You mean… like Pizza?”

“Sort of.” I say, looking away with a slow smile. I watch the river under the fast moving clouds and the darkness of the night. I watch the river flowing to the sea.