Place entry #1

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” - Norman Maclean

I can't help but be drawn to rivers. The epigraph to this entry was lifted from the novella A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, one story in a semi-autobiographical collection of the same name, all of which detail some part of the author's life in southwestern Montana. The film version of the story was shot in and around my hometown of Manhattan, Montana, and the final, iconic scene of the narrator flyfishing was shot on one of my all-time favorite stretches of the Gallatin river – though the pocket-water there can be mighty unforgiving. I am drawn to rivers; to the odd comfort I find in observing the bends and stretches of their determined courses; to their patient, glacially paced method of etching out landscapes; to how they stitch together ecosystems and thread together mountain peaks, hills, valleys, and the sea in one long motion. How could I help but find a place to spend some time in my adopted city of Pittsburgh to watch a stream course by?

For the remainder of this semester, I'll be reporting from from the banks of Nine Mile Run, a stream running through the southern end of Pittsburgh's Frick park, on the side of a footpath between the nearby Firelane and Braddock trails. Of course, this is the middle of January, and the whole park is under a layer of snow. The last footprints I saw were on the Firelane trail, a good fifty yards or so behind me. Nine Mile Run is still flowing, but the banks have been packed with ice and snow. All of the trees around here are deciduous, but I can't identify them without their leaves. Everything is quiet, barren. Back in Montana, I hiked streams like Nine Mile Run in the winter to catch sight of moose in the Gallatin mountains, and I instinctively scan the ground around me for any signs of deer passing through – footprints, ruts, droppings, anything. This latest snow has only been around for a week or so, and nothing seems to have disturbed it yet. Noticing that, I realize there is something profane in the heavy-footed trenches I have carved on my way to here. they look as though some rude beast had come through, rooting through the snow for roots or some covered vegetation, lobbing snoutfuls of the heavy powder left and right in the search.

The change from winter to summer around here is a process of covering and uncovering, a shifting of attention. When the leaves fall and snow covers the ground, only the many details of naked branches remain, everything else obscured by the white. Later, when the snows melt and the leaves return to cover the arms and tendrils of the branches, our eyes draw down to the grasses, the flowers, the newly unveiled palette of greens and browns around our feet. Covering and uncovering, everything revealed and hidden in turn.

It's well below freezing today. The cold is all I can think about after a while, so I trudge my way back through the trenches I left, still scouting for a deer print or two.