I can hear the tugboats on the river from my bedroom window when I lay still enough. I think about the long barges steered by tiny vessels, a quarter of their size.
The air chilled, finally. A real snap to the December wind that floats off the Mississippi. I can feel it through the tiny spaces where wall was meant to meet window frame. Instead, the wind whispers through the gaps. When it hurricanes, the wind whistles through these spaces. Not a soft whistle like mother to baby. But like a cat call, loud, angry, looking for entery points.
The heater smells of burnt dust. The first switch from ac jolting the house. The lights quiver faintly as it clicks on, drowning out the beep of tugboats. Sleep comes uneasy tonight. Yawns stretch my jaw wide but my mind runs currents pulling my eyes open. I cannot hold what I love. Or tug what I want. Not upstream. Not anymore.
When I was a little girl, my dad would take me to the levee. We’d watch the river carry tree branches down her center and disappear around the curve. We always noted how high or low the waters were. If the water ate up the tree trunks that found roots at her basin, we’d deem her high. He told me to never go in the water. The Mississippi wasn’t something to swim because the currents were too strong, too powerful. I would drown.
I never questioned if she wanted the branches. Only knew that she broke them. That she could topple the levees if she wanted. That only tugboats were going upstream. That meant they worked hard.
I spent part of my life trying to swim in deep currents, anyway, knowing I would drown in them. And I did. It killed part of me. Floated down, gobbled up by tides I could not beat. The part that made it to the banks, might be strong as tugboats. Even if it is only a quarter of the size I thought.
This city knows not to place expectations on the water. A Sunday afternoon rain can be more damaging than a named storm.
