My Own Long River of Song

I love water. The ocean, a river, a lake, a pond, even a pool--the sound of it and the smell are intoxicating to me, and I love the feel when I dip my hands. It’s always changing. Sometimes water is frightening in its power. Sometimes it reminds me of my smallness. Sometimes it takes my breath with its beauty. Sometimes it brings me so much joy I never want to leave.

One Long River of Song, a collection of essays by Brian Doyle, captures all of these feelings in one volume. Covering everything from becoming a parent to a response to school shootings to missing family who have gone on, Brian Doyle writes lyrical essays that sing on the page and leave space for your soul to sing in response.

This collection was put together by his friends and family after his death and joins their favorites of his essays, loosely connected by theme, in one lovely place. My pastor, who recommended the book to my husband and me, said it sounded like Wendell Berry and Frederick Buechner had a baby together and the baby wrote books. He wasn’t wrong, and with that description, this was not a book I could miss.

One of my favorite essays was a hilarious story of a journey the author and his younger brother took to the beach as boys on their bikes, and of how their older brother saved them with his car and brought them home, letting them sleep in the back seat while the older brother brought their bikes and surfboard into the house. He lingered over this gentle and tender memory of a man who had lived a full life--work, marriage, children, friends--and the image reminds us of the impact of any gesture of love, of love’s power to make us feel safe. Another favorite essay was the one in which he discusses the joys and fears of parenting when his twin boys were born, one with a heart condition, and I cried through the essay where he honors the heroes in the Sandy Hook school shooting. Brian Doyle’s gift is to recognize the details that are the shining jewels in our lives and to share them with us in the most lyrical words.

I need Brian’s words right now. I’m such a slow processor that sometimes I wonder if I’m actually processing anything. But now, a year later, I’m looking at what the pandemic changed and all that I’ve lost, and I’m sifting through pans of silt to see what gold nuggets I’ve gained. It’s painful work, and it makes me sad. Sometimes I wonder if the nuggets I find are worth everything that is now so very different.

But tonight, I sat in a flaky, creaky rocking chair on my front porch, huddled in my old blue sweatshirt against the wind and pretending to look at Instagram but really watching the three little boys in my front yard throwing a baseball back and forth over the driveway and shouting their encouragement to each other. My son’s wild pitch almost knocked a light fixture off the front of the garage, and the other two boys scampered back to their own yard to crouch on the sidewalk, peering at us over their knees until I straightened it out and announced the fixture unbroken. Then they came cheering back, and the game commenced again, and I wouldn’t have cared if they had broken the light right off the wall because my heart was so full at watching the three of them play together after such a very long year.

I came inside and watched my son through the window as he leaped and ran, and I knew I would never get over the magic of his movement, joy in every motion. The absolute wonder of a chilly day infused with the hope of spring, a white baseball arcing through the air, the pound of a blue glove, the cheers of friendship in the air--it’s the light splashing off my own long river of song. I dip my hands and take a deep breath.

I’m grateful to Brian Doyle for showing me another way to listen to it.