jenett | In the middle is the river (Reply)

I've been asked, since I'm so water attuned and focused in a number of ways, what it feels like to not live by the ocean.

I grew up in the Boston suburbs, where the Charles River and the Atlantic are certainly present. There are lakes, and I spent a number of my teen summers on one. But honestly? I could go days, even weeks, without seeing a body of water more sizeable than a fountain or the duck pond by the library.

Here, though, in Minnesota, my adopted home, it's different.

There are the lakes, of course. We're not actually the land of 10,000 lakes. It's more like 11,482 (for lakes more than 10 acres), and something like 15,000+ if you include smaller ones. There are big lakes, small lakes, spring-fed lakes, man-made lakes, lakes you sail on, lakes for short walks, and lakes for long ones. And, of course, up north, you get Lake Superior, which is a body of water all its own kind of thing.

It's hard to avoid the lakes. If you travel through the Twin Cities, you're constantly going by them, or around them, or on a main road that *is* the main road because it avoids them. I walk around one twice most weeks. I drive by several others regularly. I talk to people about what they see on their walks, and their travels, and from their back windows that overlook a lake. We share stories of seeing a heron, a peregrine, an eagle, of the beautiful wildflowers that grow on the bank, and whether there's any better way to address the algae.

And then, there are the rivers.

I fell head over heels, absolutely, abundantly in love with Minnesota, while visiting the state for the first time for a then-friend's handfasting. We were walking toward the Minnehaha Falls bridge from the parking lot, when the heavens opened, and one of the great thunderstorms rolled in. As we walked to the near edge of the bridge, it began to rain. Half way across, it had started hailing. We retreated, and I was hooked. I'd barely seen a river yet.

And that's the thing. There's *the* river, the one that echos in my head.

I grew up in Boston, remember. Somewhere in my childhood, the Mississippi took on, for me, a mythical importance. It's the center of the country. Beyond it, things are mysterious, different, settled at a different time, and in a different way, and with a different purpose than the original colonies I knew so well and their close cousins.

Ever since I've moved here, I've taken joy in driving over the Mississippi as often as I do. There's something sparkling in it: one moment on one side, a few moments later, on the other. The river is relatively narrow here: you can drive to where it begins with little trouble.

It is often smooth, elegant, dancing between the deep walls of the banks. It's a river where you can watch the Morris Dancers dance the sun up on Beltane, with the sun rising behind them from the East Bank. Yet, it's also - as we saw in New Orleans, and in many other floods in the past - a lethal river, one that can turn and snap and change, almost without warning. And it has other sides: it is a major transportation route in its own right, never mind the highways that run across it. It is an irrigation source, and the third largest river basin in the world (and the largest in North America - see for a map)

And there's so many bridges. Anyone here who spends much time going from one side of the river to the other (and I know people for whom crossing the river is an Event of the first magnitude), uses many of the bridges. For about 8 months, I drove the 35W bridge regularly, going to and from work. It would have been my preference for going up to group religious work, when they finished construction. I've driven the I94 bridge, and the 35E bridge far more often, and these days, I'm using the Lake Street bridge a lot.

You can't avoid the bridges. Not unless you avoid the river.

There are a lot of ways to describe the Twin Cities. The two have very distinct feelings and emotional relationships, and interactions with the people who live in them, work in them, or visit them.

It's also the polarity.

I'd already been thinking about this, but the bridge collapse brings it home. Minneapolis and St. Paul have (to those who don't know them), surprisingly different cultures, histories, feels, communities, and many other things. But, with the boundary line of the river between them, they also dance and interact and change - not only themselves, but each other.

As I settle into living on the west side of the river, I'm learning this even more. Someone, this past spring, at a Minicon panel on the city as character, described the difference between Minneapolis and St. Paul as "Minneapolis has the Fae, St. Paul has the ghosts."

I'm not entirely sure I agree. But I'm not sure I disagree, either. I need more data. What I do know is that they make each other stronger, richer, more vibrant - because you can't take what's there for granted. The arts benefit hugely from this: as was pointed out to me yesterday, the Twin Cities has, per capita, as diverse a theatre community as New York City. We have a world class modern art museum at the Walker (and the Minnesota Institute of Art collection isn't exactly shabby.)

We support numerous independent bookstores. Where many sizeable cities have limited esoteric stores, or SF specialty stores, we support multiple stores of each kind. (Though, regrettably, some other types of independents have increasingly closed.) There's always something interesting going on, and at times, there's even too much to take in.

I could fill every weekend between now and sometime in the middle of October with a different event, festival, fair, or something else, that I would enjoy going to, if I could manage the time and the energy. And not only are they happening, but they're close enough for me to be willing to go for a half day, or a few hours, or to try something out, without worrying too much about how long *getting* there will take.

And in the middle of all that, I can also go to my local farmer's market (make that markets: there are at least 3 sizable ones within a 15-20 minute drive including parking) and get food from my area, where I can ask questions, know where it came from. I can go to one of a number of co-ops, and do the same. (And again, we won't even go into the variety of specialty stores.)

I'm more and more convinced that it's the River - and the many other rivers - that make that possible. Not simply in the mundane, pragmatic ways - you want food, you need water - but in terms of providing both flow and division, change and push, separation and connection.

And yet, there are days, like yesterday, when I'm reminded that all of that has a cost and a risk. Nature is its own thing. The river is its own thing. We cannot, ever, fully control, tame, or cross that boundary without that moment of being within its grasp. There is always the moment when we trust, when we hope that it will be okay.

I admit I've hesitated, driving over the bridges I've crossed in the last 24 hours.

I won't stop crossing them, though.

Not ever.