Pooner Diaries: River

[Birdboy 10482]

The river streamed past slowly, its grey-green water flowing with hardly a ripple. The odd bit of cottonwood tree fluff floated past. I smiled, amused, when a mother duck and her tiny ducklings appeared from out of the mist. They paddled past as the water steamed slightly in the cool July morning air.

 

The river. I'm sitting right here on the bank watching it. This liquid ribbon defines my home, my river city. It twists and meanders through my home town, not a straight stretch in sight. I've grown up here, never ever very far from it. It moves slowly, implacably. I've known this river my whole life, and it will be here long after I'm gone from this earth. I take a little comfort from that, knowing that some things are forever.

 

It's usually head clearing to be here, free from the rest of my crazy life, but today is different. Sitting under this tree today, my thoughts are doing some twisting and meandering of their own. It's a special day. I have a little time to kill. I'm going to meet Alicia, in a couple of hours.

 

It seems like we met ages ago. I remember the day I first saw her. She was a thing of beauty. Elfin features and milky white skin, that tiny lightly freckled face, that long curly hair. She took my breath away, and I was speechless. At a loss for words, there was only one thing I could do. I reached forward and kissed her. Though her lips were as a butterfly alighting on my lips, her arms around me were the embrace of something wild. And when we got to her bedroom, oh, my..

 

I left her place that first time, in awe and a little in love. This young woman had well and truly rocked my world. No furies would be powerful enough to keep me away. I saw her again and again, and it would be the delight of my whole week when we could meet.

 

Time streamed past, flowing slowly, inexorably. But she was a cipher to me. There are boundaries, there are limits in this game. No names. No personal details. And definitely no socializing outside of our times together.

 

But sometimes, the river will change. Change ever so gradually, almost imperceptibly. You notice that a little of the shore is gone under the water, some of the gaps in my knowledge of her were filled. They were there, just a moment ago. Our budding friendship grew and grew until it eventually overflowed its banks. It made us realize that maybe, just maybe, we wanted to know each other just a little better.

 

We met for the first time outside of her place, at this very spot beside the river. Under this very tree. I brought a picnic lunch for us in a wicker basket, spread a plaid blanket on the lush grass as I waited nervously for her to arrive. She appeared from behind the trees, smiling her enigmatic smile, a modern Mona Lisa made flesh. Our relationship was to round its first curve, settling naturally and gracefully into an easy friendship.

 

I found we'd come from different worlds, she and I. I came from inauspicious beginnings. Many youthful hours at the public library brought me to a world where words were king, and I discovered they flowed from my pen with the ease of water flowing out a spout. Much hard work brought me success and a little fame, but I never forgot my humble roots. Not even now that my temples are graying, and crinkles appear at the corners of my eyes when I smile. And I, ever so serious, was as firmly rooted in life as the hard clay under my feet on this riverbank.

 

I envied her childhood. She had lived her short life in comfort and ease, every whim waiting to be granted just for the asking. Her young heart was light and carefree in her world without strife. I marveled at her playfulness, her joy at life. I envied that, too, in my world of pressure, of deadlines, of words forced out in a rushed hurry. I admired her laughter, her smiles, sparkling bright as the midday sun on the river's waves.

 

But we discovered something else, besides that we both thrilled to the touch of the other. We found that age can just be a number. That sometimes two minds can think as one. That completely different personalities, forged from experiences worlds apart, could find such common ground. And though we came together at first in silence, we found we could spend endless hours talking about everything under the sun as we sailed through our days together.

 

My time with Alicia is coming to a close. She's moving on. She is about to drift out to sea, far away out of sight and off to parts unknown. But first, today, she's granting me the honor of being the last in this life. It's a nice little bit of symmetry. I was one of her first, you know. I know that we might never touch each other in that way again, after today. But I'm not sad. Because it is not goodbye today to Alicia, but so long.

 

And a warm hello to my friend Jennifer.