How lucky am I? I live 3 houses away from a river. And walking 4 very short blocks, I can walk onto the bridge that takes me to neighboring PA.
Yesterday I went out walking for my exercise and decided to take my camera. Something I don’t do often enough. I was immediately drawn to the river on this sunny day – blue sky, no clouds. I headed onto the bridge, not to go to PA, but just to see the river. Even in winter, with not a leaf in sight, it was magnificent.
I am happy when living by water. I am always happy to just be near water – the ocean, a lake, a river – there is something calming, inspiring and renewing about it. I wonder if this is universal or something belonging to just some of us. Is it because my family used to go the shore throughout my childhood and my Dad taught me to swim in the ocean? Is it because in my tween and teen years we used to vacation up at Highland Lakes every summer? Or perhaps that we used to go on a Sunday to Cooper’s Pond in the neighboring town and feed the ducks? I took some of my very first photos with my new Brownie camera there. Maybe it’s because I’m a water sign. Maybe I was once a mermaid. Maybe I am just forever enchanted by nature.
Our creativity, in whatever way we express ourselves, is influenced by all of who we are and who we have been. I believe when we reach inside ourselves and touch upon the good things, the meaningful things, in our pasts – or even find them for the first time – we are enriched in every way. Yet we make so little time for these things … to let ourselves be with our own enchantment … to just let ourselves be. Today, for this, I thank the river.