The River Calls

Me? I'm rheophilic. Rheophilic(rheo·​phil·​ic)  preferring or living in flowing water. I've always preferred living by flowing water. And for as long as I can remember, I've been drawn to the Hudson River. When we first moved to Kingston in the fall of 1975, we lived on The Strand, on Abeel Street. Oddly enough, my journey has come full circle. I now live half a block up from our old apartment. I remember the barges and tugboats lined up along Dock Street, and I think I recall coal being piled on Island Dock as well. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm mingling scraps of memory and found images together, but either way, the river has always been part of my story.

Then and now

The Rondout Creek flows into the Hudson. We keep our boat almost at the end of the creek, so every outing starts the same way: slow pass through the "No Wake" zone, gliding past the same edges I walked as a kid. That gentle passage feels like entering a portal between my past and my present, between land and water.

Our first outing of this season wasn't exactly smooth. The rain had finally stopped and the air felt soft. We headed north out of the creek. Once we were out of the shipping channel, we cut the engines and let the current carry us.

Oswaldo Marquis, our new First Mate, stood on the deck, ears up, tail wagging, nose tasting every note of river wind. He's ten months old, a little bigger than Hamish was, but every bit as brave. This was his first real cruise aboard Crossroads. He'd had practice on our little Boston Whaler, but this was the big test. I'm happy to say he rose to the occasion.

Oswaldo Marquis

After Hamish crossed the rainbow bridge, I wasn't sure how this season would feel. His absence is every where. In the corners where he curled up, in the soft space behind me where his tiny feet used to follow. He was the Littlest Man. My heart. My river companion. Oswaldo doesn't replace him. He couldn't. But he brings something new: raw curiosity, delight, and a reminder that beginnings still find us, even in our grief.

It was a dreamy late spring evening, the kind that makes you stay out longer than you should. But we didn't bring provisions for the night so we started back toward the creek. Just as we were getting up to speed, both engines died. Steve turned the engines over. They sputtered roughly. The carburetors coughed and stalled.

Captain Steve

He coaxed one of the engines into spinning, and we headed back to the slip sooner than we wanted to, carrying that quiet disappointment only boat people know: when the river calls, but the engine won't answer.

The season has begun.

The world is wild right now. Loud, relentless, hungry for our time and our spirit. Some days, it feels like we're all expected to grind harder, shout louder, and keep up pace in the rat race. Sharing this blog with you, is one of my tiny rebellions. A quiet refusal to normalize chaos or let it paralyze me. It's where I practice slowness, softness, and the kind of art that ripples outward.

I don't pretend to have the answers. But I do know that we need every bit of joy, stillness, and love that we can find.