The Los Angeles River: no kayakers, fisherman, or swimmers will ever bother you there. It has a hint of toxic waste, and the citizens of LA always keep it decorated with broken beer bottles and trash. I have never been afraid of it except for a couple of times when rainwater made it over flow. Essentially, it is a manmade, concrete lover’s heaven. It is the “nature” I grew up alongside, and seeing it now reminds me of how far I have come in four short years of being in a different place.
The Willamette River is the life-giver in the Willamette valley of Oregon. People camp around it, swim in it, jog along it, and even occasionally die in it. With thousands of other Duck football fans, I walked across it to get to the games, I jogged along it, and I even once swam in it. It was the soul of Eugene, and allowed Eugene to be what it was for me in that wonderful stage of my life.
The Charles River of Massachusetts, the third and final destination so far in terms of rivers, you can see that there is a combination of urbanity and nature, which I find quite appropriate now, given that I have experienced both individually. At the risk of sounding obnoxiously philosophical, here we find symbolism!
Being in school my whole life has made me crave autonomy, responsibility, and freedom to put my skills to the test. Boston is where I feel drawn to because it is a clean slate, and begging me to jump in and swim in the musical as well as literary opportunities. Not to mention the fact that it is cheaper to fly there than it is to fly to Oregon. Oh yes, and those beloved family members who I will now get to see more frequently.
Sometimes the most significant changes happen in the shortest amounts of time, and that has certainly been the case with me. Life will do what it wants with me, perhaps harshly, and perhaps without success, I feel confident however, that no matter what, it will allow me to “flow” with ease to the next chapter afterward.
Here I go!
2 comments:
Nice stuff, Liz! I am so happy for you. Just one thing, though, the Charles River is boring, and the Los Angeles River is epic. How many floods have raced their way down the Charles River, huh? Even if there were lots and lots of them, how would you know? it's already got so much damn water in it. And how many chase scenes and tanker truck explosions have been staged in the Charles River, to provide audiences with hours of summer movie viewing pleasure? Let's Google it to find out.... ah, here's the answer: ZERO. And calling a river "Charles", well, that's just dumb. Still, if it makes you happy, then I'll cut it some slack. I suppose having a bunch of white people endlessly rowing up and down at five in the morning is kinda interesting, if the boat tips over, I guess.
Ah comm'on.....people die in the LA river too! How quickly we forget the simple things that happen??? All the traffic trying to negotiate the overpasses of the LA river during and after a rain, their forward momentum detained by the sheer numbers of firetrucks and emergency vehicles needed to try to catch some brain-dead idiot who thought it would be "cool" or "fun" to bodysurf in the LA river because "we finally have water in it???" The endless drone of the helicopters, both rescue but usually many more news helicopters, zeroing in on the one person who has captured their attention and pretty much any "BREAKING NEWS" segment that will go on ad naseum until the rescuers haul the persons sorry ass out of the water....
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