My "Thinking Spot"...

When I was a boy I spent a lot of time on the Sacramento River delta.  I had some favorite spots I liked to go.  One was a little island in the middle of Sherman Lake.

And one is in the picture above.  Near my home town, at the bridgehead on California Highway 160 there's a fishing pier and next to that pier is this rock.  In the picture it's partly hidden by the bright green grass in the foreground.

I used to sit and watch boats and ships go up and down the river.  And dream.  I used to dream of sailing that river out to the San Francisco Bay, and on to the South Pacific.  I used to dream of what life would bring me - and what I would take from it.

On the first day of fall this year I went to visit my old home town.  I drove out to the bridgehead.  Not much had changed.  There were the same people fishing for dinner.  There was the same brownish green water.  There were the same sea birds hoping for a snack.  There was the same wind blowing up the channel.  There was the same farmland on the north bank.

As I walked toward the water I thought back on the many hours I'd spent sitting alone on that rock.  I thought about the quiet times spent talking with friends on that rock.  I thought about the plans and dreams hatched on that rock.

I thought about how none of our lives had turned out like we'd planned on that rock.  And I wondered if the rock were there anymore; or if, like so many dreams, it too had moved on in ways unexpected.

I'm not sure if I can convey the feelings I had when I saw it.  It was as if I were 15 again, with decades more perspective, yet the same little set of hopes and fears.

Twenty-five years later, the rock is still there.  And the same intense restless hope and uncertain confidence is still there when the sun sinks orange into the evening mist.