Can one get to know a river, like one can get to know a person?

Does a river have a personality? Can it have moods?

Can one get to know for themselves the breadths and depths of the unfamiliar waters, as in the breadth and depths of another person’s soul?

I set out on my canoe expedition to know the Green River. To experience the river as a living, moving force. I wanted to see if I could truly get to know a river.

I set out to make the Green my river, the one river that I would know and esteem. I desired to create a personal history with the river. I would know her by floating through her waters.

It was nothing short of a relationship. We started small, in the headwaters. I introduced myself. I had come there to court her. I moved slowly, methodically at first. Upriver, she only revealed the most shallow parts of herself, a superficiality. It was a slow start. I had to prove that I had the will to endure; the stamina to weather the rocky growing pains of a fledgling relationship. The days passed and the miles progressed. Our relationship grew, and I became more familiarly acquainted with her waters.

Further down the river, I became increasingly taken by her course. I had seen more of her history. I was beginning to understand more of her trajectory. I began to get comfortable with her. My course and her course were entwined, for a time, together. I began to build trust and reliance on my ceaselessly moving river companion.

Over time, I had seen our relationship grow and change. I knew more of her history. I saw so much of her that a happenstance observer would never see. I felt an intimate connection.

But did I really know the Green River?

I had been with her on days both fair and foul. I had seen her in moods calm and sedated, as well as enraged in a storm. We had spent long nights together, and early mornings before sunrise. I saw the tributaries that influenced her character. I had even been immersed in her very substance.

But all that I had learned, was not, and could never be, the entirety of the river.

For the Green is not just one river. It is many rivers, all intricately woven together in a single flowage. The Green will, as it has for eons, continue its life through the seasons. Gradually, inevitably, through the imperceptible slippage of time and the perpetual cycling of the seasons, the Green will slowly shift into another river altogether. And, just as the largest storms in life can shake a person’s character to their core, so can an abrupt tempest drastically change the character of the river. The Green is not stagnant. It is eternally growing and changing. It is a diversity of rivers that is known by one name.

Like so many human relationships, mine with the Green River ended. We parted ways, amiably, I would say. I couldn’t court her forever. I had to move on to other things. Unperturbed by my absence, the Green kept flowing about her course. And all I was left with were the memories of our brief courtship, docile at times, tumultuous at others. Though I had learned so much about her, I knew I could never fully understand her.

This one river—known commonly as the Green—so many people have developed a relationship with her. So many people have a history with this river. So many people have gotten to know her depth and breadth to the extent that they can, creating their own stories with the river along the way. I count myself lucky to be among them, for even as short of a time as I could get to know her.

And in my time, I saw just a portion of her. I knew the Green only in one season of her life. I never knew all that composed her, never penetrated her depths. She is a seasoned veteran, a collector of an expansive watershed. She is much older, much wiser than me. She remains unperturbed, undaunted by her would be suitors like me. She remains timeless. An enigma.

Just as the depths of a person’s soul can never fully be understood by another, so too will a river’s waters remain an imperturbable mystery to a man.