Day 90: Love and the Saco River

The Saco River is brown today, a muddy murky tone that's dense.  You can't see past the surface.  We're walking a pier that runs beside the river to the jetty-where the muddy waters absorb into the Atlantic.  The Saco is not usually so Hudson-River brown.  Rich says they've been dredging.  Giant claws on big boats scoop into the river dig up sand and silt and all kinds of pollutants that the Ocean has slammed upstream.  And over time the Atlantic has pushed so much sand up the river that the boats can barely get by.  Until there's nothing left to do except watch as the very base of the river is pulled apart; sent out on barges and dumped into the deep. 

It makes me sad to think of pieces of the river clawed apart by a rusty old machine. 

Sometimes I think the human heart is like a river.  Perhaps the experiences of our lives are the currents that push on us- slowsly filling us with bitterness or love.  With memories and hurt.  As independent people we protect our hearts, even after they're so filled they're barely of any use to us.  We protect what has washed ashore- holding onto muddy sand and pollutants that are mixed with gems and gold pieces. 

And then we meet someone.   We meet someone but our hearts are already so full of stuff that in order to let them in, we must dredge.  Take a claw to our insides and pull out all these old pieces of ourselves.  The hurt.  The protective layers.  Until there is room for another person- not to sail by, but to stay.  To drop anchor.  My heart feels a little stirred up these days.  A little bit dredged.  But I'm making room for another.  Always, making room.