A river runs through it
My eyes popped open at 8:19 this morning — an unheard-of occurrence — and rather than force myself back to sleep (okay, so I tried, but it didn't work), I got up, put some pants on, and started working on the ol' resumé. Just in case. I've been told by everyone I know that you should always keep an updated resume. And I haven't touched mine in more than a year and a half.
It was nice outside so I took a solo trip down to Matyrs Park to sit in the sun by the river. I winced as Channel 3's helicopter (their office is adjacent to the park) took off and landed — twice in half an hour — perpetually in search of a story big enough to be seen from the sky. Dayflies floated past my face and I watched the leaves of the catalpa trees shake nervously in the breeze. Some older man wearing a cap strolled over to a tree and laid down in its shade.
The Mississippi. What an ugly brown dump. But it's a vein. An artery. This city, this region, wouldn't be alive without it. And yet it lays, fat and lazy like a slug, ugly with no shame. All function, no form. Was it always so gross or did it get that way because thousands of boat motors churned it into a frothy brown mess that, though it barely moves, won't settle?
Don't get me wrong; I like the river and I like sitting by it and not being pummelled in the face by the smell of rotting fish (which is the aesthetic experience of sitting next to the river in Saltillo or Savannah). It's just so ... natural. I look at the Muddy Mississippi and the toothy metal bridges stemming out over it and feel very small. It's odd to look across to the far bank and see the flat stretch of Arkansas nothingness. It looks like this side of the river is the happening place to be.
Wouldn't it be much more fun to be on the other side, peering across at the Memphis skyline, watching people walk the trails like ants, their news helicopters alighting with annoying predictability?
It was nice outside so I took a solo trip down to Matyrs Park to sit in the sun by the river. I winced as Channel 3's helicopter (their office is adjacent to the park) took off and landed — twice in half an hour — perpetually in search of a story big enough to be seen from the sky. Dayflies floated past my face and I watched the leaves of the catalpa trees shake nervously in the breeze. Some older man wearing a cap strolled over to a tree and laid down in its shade.
The Mississippi. What an ugly brown dump. But it's a vein. An artery. This city, this region, wouldn't be alive without it. And yet it lays, fat and lazy like a slug, ugly with no shame. All function, no form. Was it always so gross or did it get that way because thousands of boat motors churned it into a frothy brown mess that, though it barely moves, won't settle?
Don't get me wrong; I like the river and I like sitting by it and not being pummelled in the face by the smell of rotting fish (which is the aesthetic experience of sitting next to the river in Saltillo or Savannah). It's just so ... natural. I look at the Muddy Mississippi and the toothy metal bridges stemming out over it and feel very small. It's odd to look across to the far bank and see the flat stretch of Arkansas nothingness. It looks like this side of the river is the happening place to be.
Wouldn't it be much more fun to be on the other side, peering across at the Memphis skyline, watching people walk the trails like ants, their news helicopters alighting with annoying predictability?
posted by theogeo | 4/10/2006 01:21:00 PM
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