No man steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. -Heraclitus

Since I was in middle school and my family took a two week road trip across the northwestern United States, I have been mesmerized by our natural world. I spent much of that trip in awe, not only of how the landscapes looked at the time, but imagining how they formed, how they looked decades ago, how they look in different light, or in different weather. Hiking through mountains and valleys, I often wonder things like, “When it rains here, how does it drain? Which rivers does it fill? Does it get dammed in a reservoir or does it find the ocean? Does it cut more canyon or does it get diverted by rock that doesn’t erode very quickly?”

Sometimes water gradually cuts its path through the landscape making almost unnoticeable changes to its environment and other times roars through canyons, making new paths and features. Regardless, both the river and the landscape are constantly changing, each affecting the other. Now in middle age, I strongly see the parallels between the life and the varying rate of changes we go through depending on our experiences. Sometimes we’re the river and sometimes we’re the landscape, depending on which point of view you want to assume.