River Rocks

I've found today to be wonderfully pleasant in numerous ways. 

Even amidst the stress of an impending move to a new state and new place, I reassured myself today that these things are well within my ability to complete and succeed at. It's not a feeling I've been able to enjoy for a long time, and the saboteur in me wonders how fleeting this sensation is, but such sounds are a dull hum compared to the borderline unbridled happiness I otherwise feel. 

(A stock image of the White River)

Amy's parents came up this weekend, when I got off work at the Co-Op this Saturday evening they were home, and my folks and I played the part of host and we had a meal, chatted pleasantly and the like. 

To my glorious surprise, John went out of his way to mention things he's read in the New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, a book I recently finished this past spring. 

He cited some excellent points, and proved my faith in him (which didn't need proving) and in his entire generation by extension. Truly, he is an intelligent and compassionate example to set for so many people and I was wildly proud to see him and his wife mention this book and express such earnest desires to contribute to the positive change we so often seem deprived of. 

The next day I went with them to view an old "Lincoln Era" house at the Fells a little ways south and we enjoyed some beautiful flowers, fountains and the like. The main questions I had to ask while there were: 

Presumed Dogwood, though Nan pointed out it was blooming late and this was the only branch in bloom. It truly made itself seen, guarding the path to the lake loop trail. 

Were people back then (as in, a century or two ago even) really that short??? The archway in one part of the garden was exquisitely low, I promised I would have to investigate that later...

How on earth did they power fountains back in the day? Certainly paintings of viennese fountains in the 19th Century aren't all fabricated, and the obviously predate conventional power...I haven't the slightest clue but I would be remiss if I never investigated farther. 

Today was also quite hot, in the 90's at least. I woke up and after some coffee and clerical work, joined Charlie and my Dad to go the White River. To my surprise I had never been to White River Junction before and I was surprised and pleased at how quaint and fun it looked! Even in the midst of the pandemic the downtown was lively looking. 

We continued to the river and found it was a vast, broad, and shallow stream with fascinating rocky outcroppings throughout. We began wading out toward some rocky islands which were turned sideways, and perpendicular to the flow of the river. They reminded me of the windswept rocks of Moab in Utah, made up of gently swirling tendrils and ripples of once liquid stone which even now can only evoke thoughts of wind and water. 

These were a dark grey, and my Dad pointed out a few spots in the striations where the rocks appeared to ooze and squish, like a gurgling bubble of cheese between layers of lasagna. He explained that as these were metamorphic rocks, these more fast melting layers of quartz would move and sheer under the great pressure and heat from where these rocks were created. I asked if quartz was silicon based, and he said it's Silicon Dioxide, sort of like the CO2 of the inorganic world in terms of properties and abundance. 

After a brief foray into the truths of atomic radius and how it has bearing over the potential consequences of silicon rather than carbon based life, I noticed a crawdad swimming in the shallow water. 

We spent the next 15 or so minutes flipping rocks and predicting which would yield a new pale bodied crustacean shooting out from underneath, inexplicably backwards. I exclaimed at the first one how "it's a TINY LOBSTER" which I found to be a limited truth after watching them get around. The way they would undulate quickly, claws backwards like fins, tail first, was unmistakably like a cephalopod of some kind. It was startling at first, and quite amusing each time we spotted one. 

Soon, Charlie and I started talking about the relative scale of these tiny rock islands and I pointed out that this evaporating puddle on top of one could easily house a modest population of tiny industrious people, which launched a new discussion around resources, possibilities and more. We joked about how scraps of grass would be an important source of timber, and how the bleached forgotten crawdad claws left at the bottom of the tiny sandy pools on the rock could be a relic for them of beasts long since slew. 

After a time we began to wade steadily upstream toward the next outcropping of rocks. The stream stretched wide and far ahead, with a white house at the end where it bent near the horizon. Above another stream of water as fluffy white clouds moved ahead. Charlie pointed out how he didn't understand clouds and how absurd they are as a concept, highlighting that he wouldn't know how to interact with one. I concurred, that is one of the pressing mysteries about clouds, but went on to provide my two cents that clouds actually weighted thousands of pounds and that I figure its probably like touching very dense fog, your hand would get soaking wet and you couldn't see through it. 

As we made our way toward the next outcropping we pointed out that the small folk from before could never make the wayward journey even with a tremendous ship build of the scrub grass growing near them. I insisted that it couldn't be worse than the Atlantic Ocean, but Charlie countered saying these people could only be a millimeter tall at most, and later explaining that one day here was 3 months for them. 

Forgoing the uncalibrated slide ruler that would govern the true scales of their travel, we arrived at the next shallow dam of rocks and commended the tiny people on completing their eternal journey. I pointed out the grooves in the slabs of rock which were covered by braids of water, proving the good sense of the river over countless years the way steps of an old cathedral wear away where they've been stepped on so many thousands of times. Seeing how deep the water got, I lowered myself into it slowly and slid over the grooved dam of rock like a leaf, with only my head visible. Charlie commented that my head would make a much more suitable and legendary boat for the return journey and we set off for the home land after making a brief detour to the shore. 

I mentioned the vague sci-fi trope of filling a massive vessel with sleeping or breeding humans to endure interstellar distances for the sake of space colonization, hoping to pique Charlie's curiosity. I suggested a similar method could be used to traverse the thousands of leagues a millimeter tall individual would have to cross to span our 20 minute trek upstream, which we agreed would be reasonable.

Before we left Dad showed us a small mucky river delta near the shore where we first arrived and pointed out that the water was very cold. We started following it through a verdant jungle of vines and new green reaching plants before finding a large concrete underpass through which the water flowed. We all gingerly walked into and through that as well, but now before noticing a small and tranquil lake teaming with crawdads and small fish, just below the ledge where the underpass fed its water into. Each foot step stirred up more sand and fish, and we climbed into the underpass and continued to follow the cold trickle upstream for a while until it got too thick and slippery. 

Charlie slipped and scrapped his shin, and we turned back. When we were getting back in the car Dad mentioned that this river used to be of a more varied topography, with better fishing and deeper holes, but that hurricane Irene 5 or 7 years ago had so flooded the entire upper valley, that the days of flooding had dumped and deposited enough sediment from upriver and the surrounding flood plains that the river bed equalized and became a broader, flatter plane. I was stunned that the hurricane had come so far inland, I guess I had never heard of that happening, or didn't connect that such massive storms could cause that kind of topographic damage so quickly. 

We drove back from the river feeling damp and content.