Life Isn’t a Straight Line — How to Chart Your Own ‘River of Life’

This exercise is designed to help you reflect on your life and tell your story.

If my life were a river

I think it would go through dark forests and it would run under cloudy skies

and nothing would want to live in it because the water would always be so cold.

If my life were a river

nobody would raft on it, or picnic near it because  if my life were a river

it would be traveling along, wearing itself against the Earth until you could see the scars from a satellite circling the Earth

and when the scientists see it, the River that is my life, they will be appalled because such a mindless force tore away at something so beautiful and left it’s  vacuous mark behind.

And they will echo then mantra of my childhood,

” You’re a  stupid useless good for nothing kid, you’ll never amount to anything. No one wants anything to do with you.”

Photo A.M. Moscoso

When I was five years old,

the river that is my life had tangled brown hair and a desire to read and to write

and to sail in a spaceship to Mars.

Then I learned to read and I learned to write but that didn’t matter

I was told,

because anybody can read a book or write a story

so the River that is my life moved on and when

the River that is my life turned 14

it’s greatest accomplishment was for coming in first at an Ugliest Date contest.

I was learning to play the guitar, I won awards for my writing but none of that mattered

that year.

The River that is my life turned to the nowhere and headed for the darkest hills it could find.

That is managed to do with absolute success- a roaring black river with icy cold water disappeared one day and not a single solitary soul noticed.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

The River that is my life got older and one day it got slower and once again it found itself all alone.

The good for nothing useless kid grew up to be a good for nothing useless woman who existed day to day  and in a round about way I guess I won the Ugly Girl Award again.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

One day and purely by chance,  the River that is my life wandered off track and it cut it’s way out of  those dark forests under cloudy skies and while it was there it found some friends who wrote stories and loved to listen to music and painted pictures and would wonder if there had ever been life on Mars and one day while the river was taking it’s time instead of running under dark and cloudy skies, the River that is my life saw a puppy running at it’s banks.

It laughed and splashed around and it even ran into a tree but then it shook it’s head got back on it’s little paws and laughed the way puppies do.

So the river slowed down so that the puppy could catch up and it even cut new trails into places just so the little puppy could see sunlight and hear people laughing and talking and where it could run under blue skies.

One day the River that is my life came to a place where it saw the dark mountains covered with snow and the black skies full of clouds and it wondered if it was time to go home.

Where it belonged.

But the River that is my life saw the puppy, who is now a full grown dog who ran at her banks and followed her just because it wanted to be with her and she knew he would have followed her back into her darkness, where at least she wouldn’t be alone.

Only there was so much more to see and the sky was so big and it was so full of stars and birds and rain and snow that River that is my life wanted her dog to see all of that.

So the River that is my life, decided for her dog she would see this other world, just for him.

And that is where they are today- they are running together under a sky that isn’t always empty or dark because now  it’s full of birds and stars.

Bancroft Manor Creating Dossiers: