Down The Winding River

If I told someone that I learned one of the most important life lessons through a fever dream, they would not believe me. 

I mean, would you?

A child, around the age of eleven, telling you that they learned about life through a dream. A dream they had on a cold winter night when their forehead burned through a fever. 

The dream of a winding river. 

And almost every time, the dream went like this.

“What will become of me from now on? After a while, I stopped thinking about that. Nothing changes, in this winding river of dreams, each day and night continues on. Monotony doesn’t bother me.” 

The silence in a way that no voices could be heard, the clear waters below, the rolling skies turning from night to day, day to night. All of it surrounded me. 

“Monotony doesn’t bother me.”

The presence of fish, peaceful fish, the boat that I’m on, yes. 

Loneliness. 

It was in a way I despised. 

Sometimes my boat would wash ashore, sometimes I would have to push it back into the winding river. 

Sometimes The boat would reach rocky spots and I’d brace myself. 

And sometimes, I’d approach a waterfall. 

Now, waterfalls aren’t the scariest things, especially when seen from afar. Their beauty can have your mouth ajar. 

But they aren’t as beautiful when you’re about to fall off one. 

Against the current, I tried to swim. My arms tiring with each move. In the end, accepting my fate, I fell. The moment I fell, I felt at peace. I mean, sure. I was about to meet my death. And yes. I was falling from who knows how high, but at the moment, I felt the peace knowing that I would finally reach the end of this boring, repetitive dream. 

But I didn’t die. 

Oh no, not me, I lived. And I was back. 

On another winding river of loneliness. 

Days would pass, nights turn to days, and days to nights. My boat, miraculously intact, would sway and I would fall asleep under the stars. 

I thought the winding river would wind on and on, and on. 

I had gotten used to the monotony. 

The swaying of the boat, the stars seen each night, I was tired of it all. 

But one day, one fateful day, I saw the ocean. So shimmering and bright, I could not take my eyes off of it. In excitement, I steered my way to it, ready to bask in the salty waters. 

Ready to see the different types of fish that scattered the azure hues and the corals that lay on the sea bed. 

I thought I was prepared, I thought, I thought. 

The days I spent on water were smooth. My skin baking in the sunlight, soothed by the cooling of the moon. Waters cool in the morning, warm at night. I swam with the fish I saw in daylight, and slept in my canoe at night, on still waters, unlike the rocking of the river. Finally, I was at peace. 

Finally, it broke. 

The monotony was gone, the boringness was over, and now came a new life of everyday adventure. 

I was contented with being stuck at sea. This was a life I could get used to. 

As I found islands on the way, this new way of living became my Heaven. My dream, my happiness. 

Soft sands, whenever I’d stop by an island, and the shade of trees when I’d been washed ashore. 

It was adventure I sought. Continuous adventure, one without end. 

Every day, I wanted to discover something new. Look for a fish I had never seen before, look for a new kind of octopus, and open my eyes wide to anything at all. 

After all, people say that ‘children are like sponges’. 

This was a utopia, joyous, euphoric. 

A dream life, a dream indeed. 

Adventure is great to seek, and even greater to find. 

And adventure I found. 

Adventure, adventure. 

It didn’t matter where I found it.

Adventure, adventure. 

I sought it and I got as I wished. 

Where oceans, rivers, meet. 

Where salt meets fresh, where a current meets current. 

Where waves meet and recede back into the ocean. 

Where waves meet, where they meet. 

A riptide. 

And one day, I encountered one. 

“Say…” I said to myself one day. “They say that if you see unusual dark patches in the water, it could mean that there’s a riptide.”

I looked over to the corner of the island. 

“There seems to be one right there. I wonder how it’s like, to be engulfed by the waves.”

The dark patch of water called out to my curiosity, as I walked towards it. 

“Yes, I will find out.”

And so I did. Into that dark water I stepped and was immediately dragged into open waters, no one to save me, none to ask help from. 

And I at first was calm, happy to feel the waters all over my body, until reality had hit me. 

There were sharks that bit, jellyfish that stung, orcas that could kill, sea snakes that had enough poison to kill ten men!

Adventure, adventure. 

It is great to seek, and even greater to find.

But sometimes, we must be contented with the monotony of rivers, rocking you back and forth, back and forth. 

Sometimes we must be contented with what we’re given. It is not wrong to seek more, but we shouldn’t be consumed by greed. 

The peace in our lives was put there for a purpose, not for us to neglect, but for us to treasure. 

Like the rocking of the river, the peaceful river, winding down the steady stream. 

And whenever I awoke from this dream, I would cry and sob, grateful for everything I had. 

Ungrateful are we sometimes for the peace in life. 

Ungrateful are we because we think we do not have adventure. 

Our lives are perfectly balanced already, determined by who knows what! It’s simply up to us, if we treasure the winding river, or get caught in an ocean’s riptide out of greed. 

Appreciate monotony, sometimes it is a better adventure than what we seek.

Enjoy your time. Enjoy it as you sail down the winding river.