11

A Different River

May 7, 2020



There is an old saying, “you can never step in the same river twice.” Obviously plain and true, but it doesn’t go far enough because not only has the water you stepped in gone on its way and new water has taken its place but the stepper has changed too. It is a different ‘you’ that is stepping into that different river.

 

If you are a reader, you know that the idea is true not only of rivers and steppers but also of books: ‘You  never read the same book twice.’ (I’m talking now about fiction, novels, not expository writing.) The experience of reading fiction the second time is different than of reading it first time, and the difference is not because there are different words in the book (to parallel the idea of different water in the river) but because a different person is doing the reading, and though I have always recognized that the second time is a new time, the idea has gained force for me in recent years.

 

Those recent years have seen some change, not just aging, but a different kind of living. Of course, everyone changes all of the time. Every waking (and maybe sleeping) moment, we change. I have changed.

 

My wife and I moved into an assisted living residence three years ago.  In that sense we have withdrawn a little from the greater world into a smaller world. I encounter fewer and fewer people each day, but I see those few we live with more often. I notice more about them: their habits, their voices, their posture, their interests, achievements, etc. I think more about my world and less about the greater outside world of the past. All in all, therefore, I find that I think more about people and less about things. Add to that all the year by year accumulated experiences, and the person who is holding the book I am reading again is different than the one who read the book the last time he held it. Different river; different book; different stepper.

 

This reflection was brought by reading again The Chronicles of Prydain and the Westmark Trilogy by Lloyd Alexander. I had read them long ago and had forgotten most of their content, not the general course of the story, but the details, the language, and when I read them again, it really was a whole new experience.  This time I saw paradox and antinomy,  shrewd hints, humor, wit, puns and allusions, logic, imaginary realities—instance after instance of subtle shadings of emotions and moods.  I have a new appreciation for the author. (Look him up.)  Lloyd Alexander painted with words, and I was apparently a little colorblind when I first encountered him. I see more colors now, but am still so limited.  My different river is wide and my feet are hardly wet.

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