This is a time of year for family birthdays: my son Peter’s 29th birthday is today; my granddaughter Chloe’s 6th birthday was two days ago; and my wife Helen’s birthday is in ten days (and in deference to her, I will not specify which birthday it is). This confluence of birthdays is always a time for me to reflect upon the nature of life.
While I cannot be certain about the manner and means of life’s initial quickening, it seems to me that while life, from a distance, appears to be a large, meandering river, it is instead, when seen at any given time from a microscopic vantage point, a particular set of unique, living things which, in commingled aggregation, momentarily form the river’s body. The life span of each such living thing gives the river movement and flow, advancing its personal, minute segment of the river from the place it was born to the place it will come to rest.
Given the one-way nature of time, my long held view of the life force as a river must surely be faulty. Time’s nature suggests that the upstream portion of my riverbed should be dry; that the life force should more likely appear as a constantly revolving whorl of energy following a dry stream bed rather than a continuous, nurturing river. But when I look from here, I can clearly see a river, complete with downstream and upstream. It might well be that its upstream is nothing more than a figment of my imagination, but memory is powerful and, taken in conjunction with history and the genetic lore of species, memory provides a clearly defined upstream for as far as my eyes can see and my mind can dwell. It is memory that makes the river flow from its source to this place here in Humptulips County.
It is the progeny of living things that carries the river away from where they come to rest. While additional birthdays will assure that Helen and I will add yet more to the river’s length, our future contributions will be primarily to Peter’s and Chloe’s memories – to their upstream. Their fact of their birthdays helps assure a downstream. Their birthdays make them ingredients in the soup which will give the river the strength and flow required to round the bend beyond Humptulips County and to explore the unknown reaches of a riverbed which I cannot see from here due to time and distance.
