This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
I'm not the right kind of doctor, but I confess that every so often I write myself a prescription: "Walk down to the Mississippi and spend an afternoon alone with the river.” It's the best alternative medicine I know for the stiff, creaky joints of civilization.
Do you have any idea why such medicine should work? Why should we small humans find immense nature so comforting? What draws us to the great redwoods, the oceans, mountains, prairies? What called Thoreau to Walden Pond, or whispered to Robert Frost to stop by woods on a snowy evening?
On the surface, it makes no sense. Nature takes no thought for the morrow, it spins not, neither sows nor reaps, it is longsuffering, is neither jealous or greedy? The Mississippi doesn't worry about prom dates or which dam to spill over. Why aren't we and our petty worries put to shame?
The Mississippi carrying along its intricate web of life, seems oblivious to me, the outsider. Why am I not lonely?
The river has the power to destroy and create, to give life, and take it. Not even stone cliffs are proof against the current in the long run. Why am I not afraid?
Sitting along the river in Rock Island, I know that the river passing by eventually flows on to world-wide adventures, becoming one with the water that circles the globe. Walden Pond and the Ganges are one, says Thoreau. Why am I not jealous, rooted to this one spot?
Compared to the river, a human life is a mere flicker. "As long as the rivers shall run," say the Navajo to mean forever. Why doesn't my little ego, watching that river run, wither into insignificance?
No, I can't explain why the prescription works, but work it does, as any of you know who have sat by a river, stood beneath a redwood, followed a trail into a forest, or climbed a mountain. By late in the afternoon the Mississippi medicine has taken hold. I get up and leave the riverbank, nourished and renewed, refreshed and awakened, and walk home toward a warm supper.
Rock Island Lines is underwritten by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and Augustana College, Rock Island.
