One of the strangest of the riverís illusions is the open-water standstill. Unlike the lockup of winter ice, which lasts for months, the standstill is an event of a few hours, or perhaps a day. Some years it never happensóthe conditions must be just right.

First, there must be a complete layer of ice. New water then arrives as runoff or rain, and floods the surface of that ice. The illusion requires quite a bit of wateródepth enough to give the appearance from shore of open water. The result is water that stays put on top of the iceóa river seemingly freed from the normal, compulsive drive of its current.

The river takes on the appearance of a lake or pond, and the illusion is jarring. In your mindís eye the water should be moving. Only when you think about the layer of ice does this make any sense. It is comforting to realize that there is an unseen barrier beneath this still surface, and that the business of the river goes on as usual beneath that barrier. Pleasant as the perfect reflections from a calm surface may be, we long to see the truly open river, where the quietest day of the season cannot still the familiar movement across the eddy line.

Livesóour own, and the lives of others around usóare not lakes or ponds. They are rivers, driven along in the relentless current of time. Any life, any river, that appears static is surely presenting an illusion. Beneath the surface that life is driving forward, changing, developing, becoming, but certainly moving on. If we can accept change, at least to this inevitable degree, I believe we can be happier with ourselves and our neighbors.

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Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
Fax 651-464-4605