Two Hearted

My mother hated water, she said.

The leaks in the roof, the water seeping into the basement where she was nearly electrocuted once as, one foot in the water, she reached a hand out to the washing machine and found herself stuck there with current going up and down one side of her body, lucky she was, they said — since it would have been the end of her — to throw herself backward without reaching out that other hand to pry herself off.

She hated the leaks under the sink.  That dripping.

She wasn’t fond of storms and she was terrified of Grand Traverse Bay, she having never learned to swim.

She got seasick standing on the dock.

She loved good dry land and the sun.

My father whose grandfather was a steamboat captain, loved water, all forms.

I love rivers, how they seem to beckon, the hidden recesses of them that seem to match those in your mind.  I love their mystery, their movement, the deadfall, the holes you must shuffle to avoid.

I love how they change.

I love rivers.