Proud to Be Lost

E.D, 2010, Lost Rembrandt, acrylic on canvas, 60x60

I have found the Wissahickon Creek’s beginning.

It has always been there.

Coexistence of creeks and roads dazzles me, as I get lost in their parallel universes.

Creek beginnings like thought origins are mystifying, but to follow their capricious wakes with all the turns and insignificant tributaries may only contribute to overall confusion. Switching to a paved road instead is an understandable temptation, albeit it may end in a dead end, too.

Old cherry tree at the creek bent is dry and coarse, her few still alive branches covered with sweet tender flowers.

"Menopause in human females may be explained by their contribution to caring for their children’s offspring because it matters more for species reproduction than their own late breeding," scientists suggest.

The only reason for menopause in human females I can think of looking at the blooming old cherry tree is our ability to think. Caring for the caring of our children’s’ offspring seems a bit obsessive on the part of nature, whereas developing the only unfinished growth in an aging human, intellect, makes sense.

Intellect is as natural a phenomenon as reproduction.

I wrote, “Considering the point were it flows in the Schuylkill River at the site of Philadelphia Canoe Club below double cascades of flashy falls, the Wissahickon Creek comes a long way.” Proudly and simultaneously stupidly I recite it in my head. It sounds paved, and simultaneously leading to a dead end.

What is the point of that writing?
It has more than one point.

I was working on the task of finding the origins of the Wissahickon creek together with my loyal companion, a young man on autistic spectrum. He, too, couldn’t keep it strait according to the road maps somehow always escaping their logic. The ways of water made more sense to both of us as we continued on our search.

It was not as simple as looking at the Google Maps because we were concerned with life itself.

We were lost on a trail at Fort Washington State Park right below the historic point of Militia Hill, when Jack spoke to us. A supporter of bearing arms he felt a need to protect American freedoms.  Unfortunately he was bitten by infectious tick and left his lime disease untreated. It screwed him up, and his wife left him taking along their daughter. Jack told us that the Wissahickon Creek beginnings were in Lansdale, inside some folk’s backyard pool.

Who would believe a crap like that?

Jack told us how important it was for American white man to protect American freedoms. I was not convinced, but he assured me that enemies of freedom were not the ladies with Russian accent or their black autistic companions. He lived with his mother and made sculpture of old bikes and junk at her backyard. Jack would always stay in my memory as an artist.

Is there any coherence to this story?

Does there have to be?

If intellect is a natural phenomenon, then coherence doesn’t matter. The story may follow paved routs, or twist and mingle like a stupid creek and still be justified in the big picture of evolution.

In our particular life it doesn’t have to make sense

In our particular life a reason may be routed

May I compare a reason to the armed protection against intellect?

“Wissahickon Creek whispers like unconscious thought under the charted map of established existence. Concealed under many small bridges of local roads, it runs mostly ignored. The settlers of green loans and hasty commuters alike have little business with its waters besides maybe zoning," I wrote.

People are blind to the obvious presence of unaccounted facts.

Three years later looking in the window of small apartment in Lansdale I spotted a rapid. My companion just moved in with his adaptive mom after foreclosure on their old house. In a narrow wasteland behind the building a creek was bobbling in heavy rain.

“With no obvious reason or clear goal a creek is bobbling in the patch of land unsuitable for development, blemishes of human refusals stuck in-between the branches of fallen trees,” I wrote.

Jack came to mind again, his outmoded figure, his whole existence defying the wisdom of today. Tanned and lean, bony and invincible to hormones and antibiotics of standard American diet, he was a vanishing breed.

The creek that comes to its climatic conclusion in the rocks around Boxborough takes us to the lot of nature-land in North Wales. Flanked by residential driveways it doesn't have an announced entrance. Two brooks run out of it to join together after crossing Knapp Rd in two separate pipes; one springs from the backyard pool at the 137 Winter Drive, where a doctor’s family used to, or still lives, and another descends from further north lost under the ground at the Sunset Drive and possibly secretly connected to the small natural lake a few yards away situated at the dead end of Sunset Dr. Encircled by Morningside Dr, Vilsmeier Rd, and W Thomas Rd right behind the Montgomeryville Five Points Shopping Center at the five point star intersection of 309, 463, and Doylestown Rd, it is only few paces away from the Starbucks where I have stopped for afternoon coffee.