From Memphis’s Beale Street to West Helenas Cherry Street, soon to Burbon Street, in its pronounced style, Jazz wafts thick in the air. Along the Mississippi everything is thick, the water, the people even the air seems to carry a weight in my every breath. The river has a curious determining power to shape the people who call its banks home. Jazz could not have been created anywhere else, there’s just to much soul in the music. That same spirit has been a gift to this river rat. In their southern way, people have gone out of their way to help me out, without me even asking. Boaters will throw me water when I paddle past them, I’ve been baught food, brought food even felt inclined to pay it back by giving food to other travelers; as I get into gator territory just so I dont become food haha.
I get asked the same question by just about everyone I have meet on the river. Since there’s a general lack of explanation as to why I’m paddling 2k miles down a river I had only seen briefly once before. The cheap answer lies in the question because, I’ve only seen it once before. The truth though is I felt called for reasons beyond my comprehension. The river has provided me with the opportunity to witness people doing good things in Jesus name. The river has also changed me, I’m not the same person I was in Itasca Minnesota. I’ve come to question everything I held austere and true. Above Memphis I ran into a several day period of solitude, in fact the majority of the trip I’ve been alone. It’s really put a high value on people but, that’s expected when your only company is the birds and the bugs. I call the the high of solitude “Waw” it’s my new favorite word and is good in just about every situation (try it haha). The mind travels far when you give it time and more time. That to me is the difference between a shallow life and a rich life though. One has to be thought out in himself to find his character. Anyway, it’s the unexpected of this trip that has made it beautiful. Unexpected people, places, thoughts and events, even an unexpected struggle with the Lord and now an acquired taste for Jazz.
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