Time Alone...Part 3

The river called my name yesterday evening....and I answered.  I decided come .."hades or high water" I was going to have some time of solitude.  I drove to Hickory to Rotary Park.  Well, imagine my surprise when it appeared that half of Hickory was there too...it wasn't that way when I use to go there for time alone.  But that was maybe 13 years ago and things never stay the same, do they?  
As I got out of the car, everything but me, the river, and the arms of the willow vanished....I could almost swear the river was reaching out to me as I hesitantly approached.  It was such a part of my life.  It heard my fears, my sorrows, kissed away my tears, and held me in my loneliness.  It comforted me in ways others could never understand.  My river was steady, stable, neverchanging...yet always moving and breathing and caressing.  I'm not sure that the peace I found there could ever be explained.  I think sometimes that is how the soul was meant to worship. ...in silence ...where all other thoughts can be put aside and you are free to just "be".  The river makes me reflect...absorbs all those little things that distract into its depth and simply gives you a mirror image of you..  It forces you to look inside that image and dust off the places that get neglected by daily life....forces you to sift through those thoughts you've tucked away to be dealt with in a "quieter time".  I love the constancy of the river....love the way it's always flowing, yet always the same.  It is inside me.