Moon river wider than a mile
A song that I heard my dad singing once when I was a child. I have always loved the river, the sea, and lakes despite of being terrified on its vastness. I find comfort in the water yet sometimes it also scares me -- scared of being near them.
Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die // where I don't belong // and my beloved neither do you
A memory from my childhood still haunts me to this day. It was a memory that I still can vividly remember. It was back when I was still in grade school, when I almost died drowning in one of those bodies of water. It was a peaceful afternoon, you will only hear the sound of the leaves caressed by the wind and the chirping birds. I was surrounded by people, I was at the rocky part of that river and suddenly I just found myself at the bottom.
It was never a good memory and there are times that I can still remember the feeling of being pulled deeper in the water and only seeing the light from above, trying to reach it, trying to fight the heaviness of it. It was a nightmare. But despite of the fear, I never hated it. I never thought of not wanting to go back. I still have been finding comfort at the sound of the running water of the rivers, the stillness of the lakes, and the sound of the waves crashing to the shore.
I still sometimes dream of that experience. It was a nightmare but oddly enough, there’s a strange feeling of comfort every time I wake up from that nightmare. It’s like as if despite of the fear, I was more drawn into the fact that I was saved. I sometimes wake up feeling that comfort as if it was a beautiful dream. And sometimes, it felt like it is. Not the memory of me being pulled down the water but the several separate moments that I spent there with the people I cared the most. And most especially, the feeling of being saved by someone, being pulled up again, gasping for air, and feeling the life conquered my whole being.
Oh, plant me by the river, oh sing, sing to me, oh, river
