Living Life on River Time

Many summers ago I was sitting on the levee watching the Mississippi, that venerable old man of rivers, as sacred as the Ganges and the Nile, proud and steady with a thousand tales screaming silently to be told. Though I had seen the river hundreds of times, it was during this one particular visit that I perceived it on its own terms. I felt as though I was seeing something observed before but only now fully realized in its own complexion and varied temperament for the first time.