In 2004, I was 16, a Junior in high school and in the middle of a year that was a rocket to the moon. Many important things happened that year. I pride myself on usually being pretty good at realizing the importance of things as they’re happening, but something I didn’t realize was so important until later was reading Old Times on the Mississippi, a portion of a larger Mark Twain memoir named Life on the Mississippi, for my AP English class. (Ms. Grant, we loved you and you are sorely missed.)
In Old Times on the Mississippi, a somewhat fictionalized version of Twain reflects on his time spent learning to pilot steamboats up and down the Mississippi River. The part that has always stayed with me was about the business of learning the surfaces of the water, about how learning the facets of what you’re passionate about can diminish and/or eliminate your perception of the beauty in it, and your enjoyment of it:
“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book–a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every re-perusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions when he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals with a string of shouting exclamation points at the end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous to a pilot’s eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter.
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river’s face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I would have looked upon it without rapture, and would have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow: that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling “boils” show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that execrable place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the “break” from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall, dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.”
I imagine we’re all going to have trouble explaining 2016 later on for people who weren’t here for it. Though it was difficult for me personally, it also brought many wonderful times and things, including personal growth. Still, it was a stressful year, and I still find myself somewhat unsettled and restless, hyperaware even more than I already was about the passage of time, and the sand shifting under me. In Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide”, Stevie Nicks sings: “Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?” (I keep the lanyard of the 2nd Fleetwood Mac show I attended hanging from my car’s rearview mirror, the set list of that night is displayed on it. I think of the song often.) The question for me isn’t whether I can sail them- I know I can, because I am. I do. The question for me, as it seems to be for so many these days, is: how do I continue to mow into my life with verve and exuberance without losing my perception of all the beauty and magic it holds?
I love to drive. Large wheels singing on pavement is one of the most beautiful sounds I know. It reminds me of summer, all car windows down, the freeway, freedom, possibility, and hope. It isn’t at all unusual for me to drive for hours and hours on Saturdays or Sundays, looking at the clouds, looking at the areas around me, and familiarizing myself with parts of the city that I never bothered to spend time in before.
I recently spent 2 weeks on vacation, and in those 2 weeks I probably drove the better part a thousand miles, which was not exactly the plan. In the past, it would’ve distressed me greatly to have deviated from my plan, but life contains multitudes, and there are times your plan is less important than the opportunities life has provided you. I drove to Cincinnati, went to IKEA for the first time. I drove to Lexington. I drove around and around Jefferson County, particularly the north and northeast portions. I was born and raised here, but it has never felt like home. It still doesn’t, but there are many portions of it with compelling beauty that I appreciate more than I used to. I appreciate everything more than I used to.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the shifting contours of the bottom of Twain’s Mississippi. Water is one of the constructs I tend to see life through- waves, oceans, tides. I have always been hyperaware of the passage of time, so it didn’t surprise me to become more perceptive of the shifting sands of life, particularly as those around me continue to marry and/or have children, and as I continue to approach my 30th birthday. Still, something is different. Life has a depth of feeling, a richness and a resonance, that it didn’t before. I imagine life as a kaleidoscope that is revealing more and more of its facets over time, facets that I am becoming more and more able to perceive. That being said, while I remain always mindful of how profoundly fortunate I am, these are rapidly changing times, and the whiplash is more wearing than it once was.
I’m not sure there is a single answer to this question, but there are a few things that seem to be pretty effective for me. I’m a little more flexible than I used to be in some areas. My life has expanded to be bigger, to contain more, than ever before, and as a result I’ve been trying very hard to increase my focus on strategy instead of being solely consumed with tactics. I don’t always have the time to focus on the minutiae that I used to, and combining that with doing some things differently means that the currents of life seem to bring more beauty than they used to. I ground myself in finding things, even if seemingly small, to savor: the feeling of drinking ice cold water and feeling it move through my chest, watching thin, wispy clouds blown on the wind, the steel drums on Earth Wind & Fire’s Side By Side, the perfect chicken wing, the elemental pull and leap of the ocean’s tides. Years ago I began a weekly exercise named Mindfulness Mondays, in which I would write about things I was mindful of being happy/fortunate to have in my life. As I drove on Monday morning, I’d be looking at the clouds and mentally drafting that week’s Mindfulness Mondays post; I’d sit in my car and write before work. Having an ongoing need for material for this weekly post meant that looking for these things quickly became a habit for all days of the week, and all times of the day. It became something I did, and still do, constantly. Though I no longer write those pieces regularly, the lessons they imparted remain.
I have never piloted a steamboat, but I have no doubt that the bottom of the Mississippi River is as shifting now as it was when Twain was learning to navigate it, and that the bends and curves continue to hold hidden truths. As I approach my 30th year on this planet, I continue to refine my knowledge of the contours of this river. The way forward appears somewhat treacherous, and some of it is not an optical illusion, but it’s okay.
Dawn is breaking, and there is beauty on the horizon.