silently carried by water. (a creative nonfiction)

I suck up air and float down the river on my back. I cannot hear anything cause the water is over my ears and I like it, I cannot see anything with the sun in my eyes and fish gather beneath me for shade. A feather floats by, and another. A long time ago she was my age, my mother, now I am hers and I have no children at all, almost six feet tall. The snowy egret is fishing on the far shore and soon it will be fall and the salmon will swim the other way, the friends will stop on their way to Lake Tahoe. From Lake Tahoe. We will have coffee cause that's what you do without kids, drink coffee and talk about something; life may not pull you along so you push it. Push it into passages push it into song. Give it to anyone else to find meaning... to make meaning... and then? That's your children, there. You give them to the world or they go out alone, people see you in them, they see you; they reflect you and you, you are proud of them; very sad if they fail, god forbid if they die. I suck up air so I can float down the river on my back with the feathers. We are soft, we are moving, absorbing all that we can, trying to stay on the surface, yet always we fall deep... to find meaning... to make meaning. Push into song and pulled into words into narrative. Drinking coffee cause that's what you do, not six feet tall, no children, none at all nearing fall. Snowy egrets and passage of time. Fish in the shade, sun in the eyes... silently carried by water.