Just as I left it, or not…

So, as I settle back into my Eastern ways tucked in these folded and very green hills, my first thought is that everything is just as I left it.  But my gut knows better.   For instance, flooding returned to our area again wiping out a county road two valleys to our south.  And my daughter, well she’s started to use the word more at the dinner table.  And perhaps a little more elusive to get a handle on, but it’s there none the less:  I’ve been changed by my Western adventure, and these eyes now see the world through the ever slightly changed lens of that experience.  Changed that is, if I allow it to be so.

It comes down to the dilemma of integration or regression.  Do I incorporate these experiences moving forward in a manner that they enrich my being or do I let them drop away like any old pair of sneakers that gets buried in the back of the closet until the next Spring cleaning?

One thing I bring back with me is an expanded sense of place.  My sense of local geography needs to expand from the Delaware River watershed, to include both the Hudson and the Susquehanna.  I’m not quite sure why when I was out West I had an awareness of the three successive watersheds.  Perhaps it’s the incredible value placed on water out there, the scarcity of water amidst the overwhelming dryness.  Perhaps in that contrast the brute fact that water is the life line, is life, stood out.

And the more I consider it, all four of the pre-Socratic elements stood out sharply.  Fire, Earth, Wind and Water.  Across Montana and Idaho, one after another, I encountered the elements in succession as they manifested their distinct powers.

I think I need to go find my copy of Heraclitus…