I know it’s not the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, but still, at the North Aurora Dam on the Fox River — the river has a voice.  At the end of my bicycle ride yesterday I found the fishermen absent from the elevated spot at the end of the dam.  I walked up, close to the end of the dam, and looked across the river.  The water cascading over just a few feet below, came with incessant, undulating roar.  One would have to shout to be heard over the unceasing sound.  The river has a voice.  It is alive with the vitality of Nature, dispassionate, without purpose, just a great singular being.  I lingered for a while taking several photos of the great quantities of water pouring over, roiling the surface of the river, the clouds of mist rising…  I knew that no photo would do justice to this.

I awakened this morning with two thoughts, inescapable realities, that I am an old guy with diminishing capacities, and that I have plans, purposes that I will pursue until the “I” passes into the greater being of Nature.  An old guy with big plans.  I like the sound of that.  Aging after all

comes to everyone.  It is not a matter of years.  It’s a matter of becoming aware of fading powers, the acuity of eyesight, perfect balance, split second

reaction time, etc. that diminish.  Perhaps you know this already?

I know that I will continue to be the person that I have become.  I plan to pursue philosophy and the promise of utility within ideas.  I plan to learn more about gardening, the nurture and the enjoyment of flowers and vegetables.  There is a dance that takes place each spring between

preparation, the timing of planting, the amount of rain, the number of sunny days, intensity of heat, etc.  All of this I can be part of and cannot control.  And I plan to keep writing.  Practice makes perfect I was told when I was a child.  Well, perfection is only the minds abstraction, but I get the point.  One must persevere.

Finally these words from The Plague by Albert Camus.  The speaker, Jean Tarrou, best friend of Dr. Rieux, speaks of the contrast between human virtue, and the forces that we call Nature.

And I know, too, that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless moment we breathe in somebody’s face and fasten the infection on him. What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest, health, integrity, purity (if you like), is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention. And it needs tremendous will-power, a never ending tension of the mind, to avoid such lapses. Yes, Rieux, it’s a wearying business, being plague-stricken. But it’s still more wearying to refuse to be it. That’s why everybody in the world today looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague.

—- The Plague by Albert Camus p. 229

Also some photos of early spring wild flowers along the bike path through the woods.