Rivers and Bridges, Part II

Therapy, and more therapy, has been a dominant theme of this summer. Sudden, traumatic events and then the long unfolding of coping and adjusting, coming to terms with self and others.

All of life is this constant negotiation, this silver stream of awareness and adjustment, a peering forward and a turning back to see the landscape one has travelled.

Event past, times long ago, lie like a beautiful village on the other side of a rushing river. The cottage is there, the place you once inhabited with its charming shutters and honeysuckle bowers, the periwinkle roses that grow near the door. A lovely place that cottage. And the people who lived there, you cared for, you thought of as friends. you think of as friends.

Those lovely people, bright, strong, handsome as they continue on about their own lives. On their side of the riverbank, near the cottage where you used to dwell, the place where you rested a while on your travels.

You can glimpse the people, that life. But it is gone to you now. The river is wide, and deep, and fast, and it carries you on to your life on this side. Is there any way to cross that river, to revisit that previous time? If the people are occupied in their daily tasks, and the river is a barrier, if life has moved forward and time has carried on, is there any hope, reason, purpose, good to come of building a bridge, of finding a boat, of sailing a kite to the other shore?

I have no answers for this. I suspect that the river once crossed is not meant to be recrossed. But these are the images that come to my mind today, as I think of the lives of those who have played a role in my life.

Rivers and Bridges, Part 1 - There's a Chair in My Room

Saw this on BTVS this week again. Ah, remember the 90s?

There's a chair in my room...

where I used to sit...

Took a pencil and I wrote

The following on it...