JOY ALONG THE WAY: SOMETIMES A FLOOD IS NECESSARY

My first spring visit to the creekside was purposely delayed. For one thing, it took a long time for the days to get warm enough to enjoy strolling up and down the banks. I didn't want to go before the meadowlarks were singing and the red-wing blackbirds were on the wind.

Winter has not been kind to the creek banks where I walk. The banks have caved in severely and I stand, gingerly, on the edge lest the soil that very minute slide down and into the water with me scrambling and screaming for help. I've been a Tar Baby in the hedge row. Could it be I'll be a mud wrestling mama in the creek?

The limestone (I hope it is limestone. That's what I've been calling it) shelf is wider and more prominent than ever and the water flowing over it has increased its special splashy music. Flowing water is an inspiration. It has a way of going over rocks, down waterfalls, around mountains to get where it is going.

A bigger than ever eddy had been formed at the miniature waterfall where the water goes round and round and round and round, forming foam in its frustration of entrapment. I stood for a long time watching a block of styrofoam (which has no business in the creek) go round and round with the trapped, circulating water. I kept thinking, maybe this time around it will swing out far enough to reach the downstream current, but no, round and round it went with dizzying, monotonous regularity. I was so distracted I forgot to watch for the red-wings and listen for the larks.

In a beautiful piece of writing, M. P. Montague said that he used to be troubled by the idea of eternal life after watching a wooden chip caught in such an eddy. But then he described a flood of emotions that made him yearn for eternal life.

Recalling that article, I thought, maybe said aloud, "That's it. It will take another flood to release that styrofoam from its watery prison."

As I walked up and down the banks, I thought of a person who might be caught up in some dreary daily grind of life and in need of some way to escape. Although it may be sudden and traumatic as a creek flood, destroying the banks, it may free some inner self to go on flowing with a life that finds joy and excitement at every bend and twist.

Changing one's place of residence, moving elsewhere, children arriving, children leaving, sickness -- the list is long -- may cave in the personal banks one may have erected, but it just might be the flood of emotions that frees your "same-old-round-and-round-life " you're weary of.

Another rain-caused flood came and I hastened down to the creek. Sure enough, the styrofoam block was gone. The water was having its way, just flowing on, around, over or washing away whatever obstacles may be in its way.

The meadowlarks were singing their silvery songs, which straighten out the snarls of life, and the red-wings lent their encouragement.

So, if a traumatic event comes, perhaps you can say, "Now what?" and go on flowing like the water. Maybe after the boulders and eddies and dams and beavers' constructions, there be stretches of still, blue waters with pink pond lilies growing in them.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.