The River Is Us

The weather was perfect today, after many, many days of  torrential rains in the area.  Everyone who had expressed interest in joining me today bowed out, so only my husband and I went to our location by the Delaware River at Washington Crossing Park, New Jersey.  The river is so high that there was nowhere to get next to the water.  We had to stay on a muddy spot looking down through tall weeds to see the water’s edge.

There wasn’t much to pick up.  Someone had dumped a lot of broken mussel shells, but they were almost all very stuck in the dense mud.  I found one to use for a head of my bird.  My husband gathered some small branches and I gathered some large sycamore leaves, and that was about it.  We made our bird from those things and hung the beautiful flag on a tree nearby.  The park was busy, so I was glad we had the spot to ourselves.

Then I noticed that the long, thin branches of some now-in-the-water trees were absolutely dancing on the water!  The wind blew them in balletic movements over the rushing water, and I could see that the small leaf at the very tip of one branch was actually leaving a little wake in the river as it swept the water!  I interpreted this as an illustration of how our small actions do leave effects, leave wakes, even though temporary, and that EVERYTHING is temporary, and that is okay. It was as if the river had read and responded to the title for our event:  The River Is Us!  I took the short video of it.

As we left, two women were just arriving and taking the path to where we had been.  I imagine they noticed the flag and the bird, and I hope they look up Radical Joy For Hard Times.