Shouts From Down Under

Forth River. If only our writing could be this captivating..

On Saturday I went to get a load of wood, towing a borrowed trailer behind our van.
You can see in the video I posted on YouTube this combination, and the sunny outlook of the day, the distant houses, the trees, flowing river and general farmland landscape.



What you can't see or know is just previous to this video, I had struggled to turn the van around on the narrow track, that everything was saturated in water, yes waterlogged is a better word, and being so close to the river I had no room for error.
The paddocks were boggy and impassable for a 2 wheel drive, and the end of this road was blocked by a gate, with a very boggy field through it. I ruled that out instantly, and could either reverse all the way back to rocky ground (a long way) or attempt to reverse the trailer into a very narrow siding that was also steep and close to a culvert or small car width road base bridge over a tributary stream leading into the river.

So, without further waffling I did do this, but only after a couple of heartstopping moments, with visions of our white Mazda van plummeting over the bank and into the black cauldron of the picturesque Forth River.
Then I loaded the wood, enjoyed the sunny day, and drove back to our place to unload.

This river is not as serene as it first appears, and sadly, has claimed a few lives, a couple of which we knew personally, or their relatives. The river has a hydro electricity dam (Paloona Dam) and a weir, from which water can be released at any time.
This river is also used for canoeing and kayaking but the dangerous leg is signposted (that's if they are still there ie vandalism) and reknowned locally for it's terrible record of drownings.

It can never be underestimated.

I think of these events every time I cross the bridge over this river, or drive anywhere near it. How can something so harmless looking be so devastating and unforgiving, so ferocious and unstoppable, so machine like and heartless, so physical.

So the obvious thought jump, like a kid crossing to the next stepping stone over a creek, was to our writing.

There is a warning vividly cast in our face, right there in this river analogy, that we need to be careful of our writing. It's all very well to stand on our digs of free speech, and to feel so right about whatever it is we write about, but sometimes we may not realise just how deep and influential our stuff may be to some reader, somewhere. This person may flounder, be overcome, be sucked down into our opinions, our cleverness, our originality, our pomp.

They may be out of their depth.

We may even think we are so clever and that it doesn't matter about Joe or Mary Bloggs' reaction to our work. They should harden up, sunshine, and shut the book if its such a big deal.

Yep. Such a good attitude hey. (?)

Anyway, writing seems to be everywhere sometimes, and we can't escape thinking about thinking about it.
The river of our thoughts, flowing deep, dangerous, momentous and silent. Words fiddled into strings of influence. Either to throw into a river of boredom to save, or to tangle around someone's legs and capture them, draw them under, screaming, choking, dying.

What fate will your writing baptise someone into?




Sparky

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