I have been crippled by my age, by what I have known, as well as by my youth, by what I have yet to learn, in all these inquiries. It has taken me years, which might have been spent (by someone else) seeking something greater, in some other place. I have sought only you. Enough. I wish to know you, and you will not speak.
--Barry Lopez,
from River Notes: The Dance of Herons
I can't say enough how much this slim volume mattered, how much it made complex, made even more emotional and even more intricately verbal my relationship with nature and story, when I first discovered River Notes in Moe's Books of Berkeley, CA, so long ago in 1980.
On this recent rereading -- and River Notes is a book I reread more or less each year, haphazardly, piece by piece over all the months of the year -- I realized how much his chapter "The Salmon" prepared me for the art and artistry of Andy Goldsworthy and for so many of my own efforts in clay amidst sea and creek.
I've witnessed this writer giving a talk and reading one of his stories at least once --"The Mappist," at the Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael -- and I took this rather intimate opportunity (such a small venue, a somewhat select gathering) to thank Barry Lopez for his body of work. I'm glad I overcame my natural diffidence to do so.
The passage above spoke to me when I was a mere youth, not even 20, and speaks to me now, a bit over 50. I like the appositive defining of age in terms of knowing, in terms of what we don't understand and of what we do, as well as the sad, even bitter tone. Loss breathes through the passage, through most of the book, and Lopez's voicing of that theme, that truth, caught my ear, and the ear of my soul (if you will), even if I didn't--perhaps, still don't--truly understand wherein that sense of loss resides, takes form. Recently, I have read an interview with Barry Lopez in which he reveals that the writing of River Notes, though a sequence of fictional narratives, was deeply informed by the death of his mother.
The book takes us from the seaside, the mouth of the river, upstream until we reach the headwaters, the source. The last chapter, be warned, is entitled "Drought." I'll hold off saying more, for I'd rather awaken curiosity and intimate mystery. I have taught two chapters in particular a dozen times, I think: "The Bend" and "The Rapids." Here's another passage from "The Salmon":
There is never, he reflected, a moment of certainty, only the illusion. And as he worked among the rocks in the middle of the river he thought on this deeply, so deeply that had his movements not been automatic he would have fallen off the rocks and into the river and been borne away.
In the summer light, even with the coolness of the water welling up around him in the air, thinking was all he was capable of; and this distraction left him exhausted and unbalanced so that at the end of the day the physical exhaustion he felt was something he lowered himself into, as into a hot bath. He pondered gentleness often. And he tried to pry (hefting the stones, conscious of the resonance between the idea in his mind and the work of his hands) into mysteries which remained as implacable as the faces of the stones.
Thank you, again, Barry Holstun Lopez.
River Notes: The Dance of Herons
A Bard Book / Avon Books: New York, November, 1980.
Voyage-charm: sculpture mix; floating blue glazing; matte finish.
