Changes and Surfaces

Changes

Just yesterday Tricycle Man commented, “The River’s ‘bout full, ain’t it?” While I voiced white lie agreement with him, I silently disagreed, since visual evidence actually indicated that the water level was down about two feet from where it had been during the night, and the Chattahoochee was a fur piece from spilling her banks.

Like Tricycle Man, the first thing most casual visitors to the River notice, I think, is the depth. But the depth of the River has become less interesting to me than other factors – color, clarity, and, especially, the way the surface looks.

I never cease to be amazed at how different the River appears from day to day – and sometimes even from hour to hour. Here in Columbus, the Chattahochee really is a river of many personalities. Most mornings she’s relatively low, clear, still and smooth as glass. Reflections are so sharp that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish a reflection from the thing reflected. Then, by late afternoon, the water level is up a couple or so feet and the current is swift, with swirls and eddies decorating the surface. Reflections become blurred past distinction. Most of the time the water is a clear dark brown, and I can see to the bottom for a distance of yards and yards out from the bank; but after a rain the water becomes a cloudy yellow-red, and visibility is limited to the surface.





Surfaces

My walks along the River have led me to an obsession with surfaces. There’s the surface of the River, which changes with the current, with the wind, with the weather. There’s the surface of the RiverWALK, which changes from asphalt to concrete to brick, depending on where you are on the stretch. There’s the surface of the Riverbank, which right now is pretty much dominated by kudzu.

And what do surfaces do? We all know the answer to that question. They conceal. They conceal what lies beneath.

And what’s beneath that kudzu? What’s beneath that asphalt? What’s beneath the surface of the River herself? What’s beneath the skin of that human being who just pedaled by?

What’s beneath the kudzu we’ll soon see, as fall brings frost and death to kudzu till next spring. What’s beneath the Riverwalk is a giant sewer, not so hard to imagine. What’s beneath the surface of the River herself? Very interesting to contemplate, but I’ll leave that to those SCUBA divers and to “the boy who could draw the bottom.” What lies beneath the skin of that human? Well, therein lies the real mystery. And I’m intrigued. Think I’ll go read me some Flannery O’Connor, or some Carson McCullers, or some William Faulkner, or some … or maybe tomorrow I’ll take the time to have a longer conversation with Tricycle Man.