The will of the river

A river charts its own path. Like the wind whipping through a valley, rivers go where they want to go.

I couldn’t help but notice that the river I was admiring the other took hard right turn. It seemed to almost backtrack.

I thought right away of the folksy movie Fried Green Tomatoes. In the movie, Buddy Threadgoode tells his sister Idgie a tall tale about a lake and some very special ducks. The story goes that the temperature dropped suddenly one day, freezing over the lake. The ducks started flapping their wings and flew away, taking the lake with them. Buddy suggested that the lake is still flying “somewhere over Georgia.”

My own Fried Green Tomatoes lake

The story shows up several times throughout the movie. I’m thinking that maybe that’s what happened to my river.

It was streaming along one day minding its own business. Some ducks or geese came along carrying the remnants of some other waterway. The original ducks got changed to geese in the movie depending on whoever was telling the story. They plopped down for a break. And my river out of nowhere took a hard right turn.

Change or be changed!

All the new water brought change. Oh I’m sure there’s a larger lesson in there somewhere on natural cycles and human interaction diving deeper into erosion, flooding, channel widening.

I’m going the simpler route. We can fight the change and challenges we face in our lives. Many times that’s the right course of action. Other times we can accept it and move on.

In the words of American poet and writer Maya Angelou “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

I know where I fall. At least when it comes to Mother Nature. I’m following and going along with the river. It knows where it’s headed.