About My Golden River

Just a word about the title of this blog. For those unfamiliar with the Pete Seeger tune, "Sailing Down This Golden River," it begins,

Sailing down my golden river
Sun and water all my own
Yet I was never alone.

I have reached the point in my life at which the form of my life has begun to show itself, defining itself – and me – against the landscape through which I have come. And, like most rivers left to themselves, my life contains much meandering, some shallows, some rough spots, smooth and tranquil pools, sharp definitions and formless mudflats. I can trace it to the beginnings, to the springs from which I arose, and I can trace the path I followed. And now, from this point, I can – or better said, I have come to believe I can – begin to sort out some of the influences that brought me to where I am, some choices, some chances, sometimes changing course because I came hard against immovable rock, sometimes wandering, nearly stagnant, over broad flat expanses, spreading thin and wide, unduly perhaps influenced by minor rises and bumps that would never appear in the deeper places.

There have been times, too, where I have been forced into narrow canyons by rocky and unyielding walls, where I was surprised by the force and power of the life that surges within me; and even times where, by sheer determination, I carved my way through barriers that seemed impenetrable. All of that, of course, is discernible now, from the vantage of the present, none clear at the time it was all happening. And, already, the relentless pressures of time have caused much of the old landscape to change, to erode away, so that the reasons behind those early changes in direction are no longer clear, known only to me, and even that knowledge fading into time, buried beneath the drifting clouds of hours and the distractions of the present.

I spoke earlier of choices I have made, but the older I get the more convinced I am that we only think we choose, or, at least, we only make the surface choices, and life takes care of the rest, the way a drop of rain slides down a window, its twists and turns affected by dirt on and imperfections in the glass. I chose to marry for the first time, but no one,, I think, chooses to divorce; it happens when the flows diverge, when unexpected currents surge and bang us against rocks that lurk beneath the surface. But that marriage and that divorce shaped my life as much as any other, as does my relationship with my now-grown daughter from that marriage.

My current – and I believe forever – wife and I also chose both to marry and to have a child in early middle age; we did not choose to have an autistic son. Had I known he lay waiting for me, I would have had second or third thoughts – and they would all have been wrong. He (and his twin, unchallenged, sister) has brought us joy and understanding beyond any reasonable expectation, along, of course, with deep challenges and fears. Much of this second half of my life is shaped by my boy, the progress he makes, and the depths he forces me – us – to explore. He and his sister have taken us to many places we likely would never had gone, had we stayed childless and been like so many of our age contemporaries, who never had children or whose children are grown and out of the home. All of that, too, has shaped the river of my life. And all of that, I hope, will be reflected in these pages.

But unlike an actual river, the river of my life is not yet set in its future course, at least so far as I know and believe. I don’t know what barriers and challenges – or for that matter shallows and broad valleys -- lie ahead, anymore than I knew during the first half. But I do think I bring something more with on the journey from here on out – the knowledge that while I cannot control the full course of my life, I can at least influence its general direction. And I have a deeper understanding of the wonder of it all, and a growing belief that there is, indeed, a reason and a pattern to what had once seemed a random and pointless meander.

Sunlight glancing on the water
Life and death are all my own
Yet I was never alone.