The River Bend

Playing with swimming against the current

I’m swimming against the current at the bend in the river, trying to see round the corner. Every time I think I can nearly make it - can nearly see - the current pushes me back. I try again, and get a little further, but am pushed back again. I’m laughing, semi-wildly, for the first time in a long day. 

Don’t stay in for too long, he says. 

I’ll do just one more.

I push, veering further to the right this time. I nip around the main swell and I can finally see it: the water further upstream of where I am. I can see the dip of the boughs, the speckles and glitters of the sun on the ripples of the water, the quivering glow and colour. I can glimpse a world even beyond that, mostly obscured by the branches and leaves, that I can’t even begin to imagine. 

It’s beautiful round there, I gasp. 

Frozen in awe, I am pushed back, and I let the current ease me back to him. I am warmth and chill and continued laughter. I am a silly smile, pulling my woolly hat further down my forehead to keep it in place. I am invisible beneath the murky water. What surrounds me is invisible too. I am alive to touch, to temperature, to breath. 

And it’s beautiful here. 

There’s a sunset behind us as we dry and dress and leave the river, yomping across the field and back to the car. But the river ripples on, even as we drive over it. The memory of my moments of giddy happiness drift by, as tiny bubbles in the current.