I don't like New York. All the faults of New Jersey are magnified and multiplied, then given a new name and (for some strange reason) respect. Drugs. Gangs. Theft. Prostitution. Bad accents. Outside the city isn't so bad- far, far outside the city. Like the Catskill Mountains. Or Silver Bay, the resort that claims its base with Quakers.
The summer between fifth and sixth grade was the last time I traveled to Silver Bay. I remember three things: swimming in Lake George. Swinging my overlarge tennis racket at an elusive green ball. And singing songs on the last day, Amazing Grace and Circle Game.
One of them I wanted to keep. So, as everyone else around me sang tunelessly to its words, I memorized the lines.
I was born in the path of the winter wind
And raised where the mountains are old
And the springtime rivers came dancing down
And I remember the stories they told
For the whistling ways of my younger days
Too quickly have faded on by
But all of their memories linger on
Like the light in a fading sky
River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song
Ever moving and winding and free
You rolling old river
You changing old river
Let's you and me river
Run down to the sea.
I've been to the city and back again
I've been moved by some things that I learned
Met a lot of good people and called them friends
Felt the change when the seasons turned
I've heard all the songs that the children sing
And I've listened to love's melodies
And I've felt my own music within me rise
Like the wind in the autumn trees
River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song
Ever moving and winding and free
You rolling old river
You changing old river
Let's you and me river
Run down to the sea.
There was more. But this is the most precise, longest-lasting memory of my life. Not that that's a very long time. This is the first time I've written them, and stared at the words, and wondered.
I sang this song during times I felt down and thought I should end it all. I sang it while I walked my dog on the beach, along the creek that smells like soured milk. But, recently... it has been replaced by other songs by big names, Enya and Loreena McKennitt and The Juliana Theory.
Tonight is not a full moon, but it is a waning gibbous that hangs bright and proud in the cloudless sky. To the memories I have left behind because of the pain they brought... for them. The river song, whose name I have forgotten, will be given voice once again.