The Genesee River, reviewed
🥺
Because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic (ever heard of it?), I haven’t been to a party outside of my apartment for two months. My lived experience is very difficult and unlike everyone else’s. By some miracle, I still sustain my will to live and, more importantly, create content. So for this special issue of Tour of Babylon, I’m not reviewing a party, I’m reviewing a feeling. I miss nature. 10’s all around.
Every time I needed to cry, I turned to the Genessee River. My first breakup was in the fall, so I put my raincoat on and sobbed through the brown leaves on the banks. Freezing New York winters made my heart ache, so I stood whimpering on the bridge while watching the Genessee, frozen body fracturing, too.
Finally, it melted in spring, and I saw a deer lap at the rocks in a shallow part. The deer raised her soft eyes to mine, and, as you might have guessed, I started to cry. But in summer, when I graduated college, I was inconsolable. I wasn’t ready for the rest of my life. All I could do was pace around the river for hours, face puffy and pink, chapped hands making futile smudges out of all my hot tears.
Unlike me, the steadfast river always knew what to do with the water inside it — when to let it crash in unmistakable sprays of rainbow and when to leave it calm, pooled around small rocks where deer could come and drink.
The Genessee is always ready for the next season, but I, instead, screamed.
“I’ll never be as young as I am right now!” I wailed, the last person on the river trail, sun fully set and sleeping. I desperately wanted my life to be like a photo, always unchanged, but the Genessee was unimpressed with my outburst; the Genessee has seen this all before. It sloshed stoically, pointedly, telling me to be ready for the next season. “As much as life may hurt,” I imagined it saying, “we’re reborn in spring.”
