i follow rivers

i grew up on a dead end that had a seductive gape of woods at it's mouth that taunted me as a child simultaneously with fear, adventure and curiosity.

Old Field Road in Southbury, Connecticut, humble in itself if it weren't for the rushing Pomperaug River nestled in a woodsy, leaf laden valley at the bottom of a steep, even more leafy, drop beyond the cul-de-sac.

as it would figure, as a child, i was forbidden to go to the river because my parents had a fear of my drowning in it. an unreasonable fear in my child's mind as my mother never learned to swim and couldn't possibly judge the actual danger properly. i could swim. i could leap from rock to rock, slide down leafy hills on both feet or my bottom if i had to. i was able. capable. sure footed. i wanted that river.

and as it would figure, that raging river became a place where i imagined everything unattainable was possible. i dreamed of high tailing it there whenever i wanted to escape the pain or boredom of my reality. it always played the setting for my dreams, tall stories and yarns...the stories i told my little brother and the neighborhood kids. it was a place of rainbows, cowboys, Indians and later...in my own private stories, love affairs.

it was the place i experienced many things. thrilling adventures with my little brother racing along the path worn by the water's edge when we dared sneak out of the fenced in yard (those were the days when kids were let out of the house  in the morning and whistled in for supper at dusk)...and later i remember skinny dipping with my teenage friends, an experience complete with my first awkward gropings that were far from pleasurable experiences.  and later, when i was in college after my family had already migrated to Maine, i would bring Dan there, the first boy to awaken me to life outside of the small world i had grown up in and the first to truly break my heart. i swam in it with him and made love to him in it. as if christiening  my "worldly" boyfriend from new jersey in it would be enough of a sacrifice to conquer it. nope.

as an adult, i am realizing there has always been something that's taken the Pomperaug's place, a forbidden, unconquerable, dangerous eden. a place i could be happy if only...some tangible happiness i've not allowed myself, or that i've imagined someone keeping is me from.

and as an adult, i'm also realizing that this yonder happiness just isn't cutting it for me any more. i am ready to realize it all in the here and now...that i am allowed to tread wherever i damn well please, dangerous or not. but that i would like it to be an honest experience...in a river that welcomes me openly...not in the shadow at a dead end.