RIVER RATS
At least, I was one for a couple of weeks. Not really down and out on a freighter working for my meals and getting mistreated in the interim. Nothing like that. But a river rat nevertheless. A boat is a boat and the Danube is the Danube. No two ways about that.
It is one grand river. Yes, siree! It flows, curves, pretty much the same it has done for millennia. It has seen a lot; it has caused bad and good things to happen all by itself. But, as a good card player, it reveals nothing, no clues are given.
But, to a keen observer, there are clues. Many of them. They can be found in the architecture of the cities, towns and settlements along the way; one can imagine the slavers and the enslaved who populated them. Different empires, different rules. One can figure out the various periods by observing the sizes of house doors. People grew over the years; we started out short and grew. It’d be nice to know why.
Other clues? There are still many. The riverbank reveals different water levels reached over the years. One can imagine all the floods and droughts. All the marks are there. The people must have been scared during either of those occurrences.
All of this was recorded in music. “An der schönen blauen Donau”, but the Danube isn’t blue any longer. How come? What happened? Was it ever blue or we, the mere mortals that we are, just wished it to be?
And, it continues to flow not paying attention to any of it, writing its own chapters of history. It owns ten countries which have to thank it for their existence. Ten countries and tens of millions of people who live there, depending on it.
I am getting to know it while sailing on a boat with a comfortable bed and great food. Maybe feeling a little bit of guilt, just a little, that I am so comfortable while traveling through history and time. Those guilt feelings pass quickly.
My fellow passengers are solemn, as if lost in thought. The Danube leaves us speechless. It is long, wide, untamed and powerful. Even the major dam on it did very little to rein it in. Very little indeed.
As if tired of its flow, history, landscape, locks, weather conditions, it finally relaxes in its delta as it enters the Black Sea. It is very wide and not stubborn in its delta as if realizing that it encountered something larger than itself. The Black Sea can whip up waves much larger than it. Hey, we all have to know our place in the world and accept it.
Sadly, in the end, my fellow passengers and I went from being a cohesive group to, again, becoming individuals, unattached and unconnected to one another. We dispersed and thought our own thoughts in that foggy, cold morning. There were no goodbyes. There was a sadness caused by parting.
We left but didn’t forget. Actually, never will.
by Mike Djordjevich
Address :
321 High School Road #303
Bainbridge Island
WA 98110
USA
Telephone : +1 661 645 5572
Email : mike@mdj-cpa.com
Website : http://www.mdj-cpa.com