The Wind in the Willows

Spring has set in here in our small rural home town, “Way down Upon the Suwannee River”. 

Jingles in my mind when I drive over our one bridge connecting so many people to the town were all working and thriving in. Every year around this time, Our main natural resource floods. 

The dark water rises higher and higher every week, making the towns folk have to get on their golf carts and drive to the local park that features our beautiful and mysterious river. They have to barricade the roads because the water is just too deep and we have had so many people think they can handle driving or even walking their dogs through it. 

The River is already a dark force on her own, without the flood. The black water that turns brown as you lift a handful of its water up. She has always given me an ominous sense when I’ve been near her and I’ve lived here my entire life. I once knew a little boy who drowned when we were just in first grade and then another boy survived an alligator attack thus forever setting a fear of alligators in my heart. Right after I gave birth to my second son, she claimed the life of a girl my age. So many people went in for a swim and did not come back up. Boating accidents, people losing a limb to a propeller and even years ago another young man I knew as a young girl was murdered on the river.

But yet, When I am on the boat…slowly idling on top of her waters. I feel at peace. She’s beautiful, flowing in the sunlight of summer, when she’s down and the springs are accessible. 

But not right now. Now, she is violent and seeking to wreak havoc. The debris she's carrying is dangerous. Too dangerous for boats right now. She is driving River goers away. She has filled herself up with docks, trees, trash and the wildlife loves it. 

I turn on our tap in our kitchen to brew a pot of coffee and the water runs light brown. 

“Not again”. I exclaim in my mind. 

Bottled water it is this time. 

When she floods our water is not drinkable. I barely like bathing in it. But what other choice do I have? It’s just another “perk” to living so damn close to the river that brings life to our existence here in our little town. I have a serious love-hate relationship with her. 

I want to talk to you more about her. 

All the darkest parts of me feel just like her. She swells up angry and consumes the land around her when she is at her fullest. She flows at a rapid pace, kind of how I feel when my mind is moving too quickly for the world around me but yet I am still swollen in anger. 

But if you reach inside her waters and pull some of it out of her, it is clearer than the rest of her and calm. She sits happily in the palms of your hands and will not hurt you. 

I imagine myself like her because I have been hurt my entire life by people. Each time, each one leaves a mark on my heart. Just like the people who leave trash behind in her waters.

In 2020 my grandmother who raised me from infancy, passed away. You can take a wild guess as to what her cause of death was. I was at my lowest breaking point in my life. I did not know how to live without her. Shortly after she passed away I went to the boat ramp, I noticed on the side of the entrance a small weeping willow growing. Such an odd but yet perfect place for it to grow. My grandmother loved weeping willows and even tried to grow one when I was a little girl but it failed in our yard. I am certain the conditions were not right for it to thrive, Plus she knew nothing of willows. 

This willow was small and so close to the edge of the river that I grew concerned as to what its future would be as I knew her waters would surely flood once spring set in. Atleast, I had hoped it wouldn’t flood. 

Summer came and went that year, right after spring and the flood did not happen. 

The little willow grew larger, stronger. I watched it on the river bank everytime we launched our boat that summer. Its trunk bendy and firm and each of its hanging branches dancing in the hot Florida summer wind, that you only are blessed with every now and then. Still, it stood like it was posing for a photograph when I would sit in the back of our boat as my husband launched us into her dark waters. Every time I looked at this tree, I thought of my grandmother whom I called “Mother” proudly. I was drowning in my grief. It was still fresh enough to hurt every month when the date she died rolled around. One night, My grief got the best of me and I took off to the boat ramp with three bottles of wine. I just wanted to die so I could be with my Mom. I sat beside the willow I had since found comfort in looking at, This was the closest I had ever been near it as I had not told my husband all that was unfolding in my mind all of these months of admiring it from afar on our casual boat rides. With the bottles in hand, in the darkness of a humid summer evening, Not caring about mosquitos or other things that went bump in the night. It was mine now, The wine had my mind calming down a bit but for me alcohol is the flip of a coin. You either get mellow, calm, sleepy me or you get manic, miserable hysterical me. I am drowning my sorrows in my wine, seeking some kind of comfort from this tree like a crazy person, When the intrusive thought pops into my head. “Just go in the water”. “Just fall asleep in the river and when you wake up, you will be with your mom again.” 

The air was still. My mind was not. tears, snot, heart ache consumed me. I forgot about my beautiful family, How much they loved me. I forgot how important I am to so many people. 

I considered the dark thought for a moment. Right as I went to lift myself up from under my willow, her branches reached out and touched me. The wind started to blow a light warm comforting breeze just enough to feel like a hug. I shook my head as if a siren was in the river and had been singing to me to take a dip. I snap out of whatever trance I was in and I hear a loud howl. It sounded like a woman screaming but was not human. That was my que to get the hell out of dodge, Like my late mother would colorfully say. 

My adrenaline was pumping all the wine right out of my veins. When I tell you I scooped up my wine and ran like I was in dire need to find a toilet, I am not lying because the sound coming from those woods by the river bank quite literally scared the shit right out of me. 

Once I got home and calmed down, I googled “Animal that screams like a woman in Florida”. And went down a youtube doom scrolling trail that led me to believe it was either a bobcat or an owl. 

I often think about what “could” have happened that night if that willow tree had not been there to snap me out of it. Would I have become another victim to the Suwannee River? Would a bobcat have eaten me? Would I pass out drunk and my eyeballs become dinner to a hungry owl or its babies? 

The wind in the willow that night saved me. 

Saved me in so many ways, I have not been that low since. I needed the comfort of its branches at that exact moment and I also needed the fear struck into me to make me leave the place I was in. Metaphorically and physically speaking. The river is dangerous at night. 

I have not told anyone this story out of embarrassment. I was in a dark place with dark thoughts. 

I still admire the willow tree. She stands taller and her branches are fuller. When the river floods the tree disappears beneath her waters but her branches float beautifully on top of her waters like a lilypad in a pond. As if she was meant for it. 

It’s time for coffee. 

I go to the sink and turn on the faucet, Hey..Would you look at that? 

The water is clear.