WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.759 The first thing you learn as a map maker is 2 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:10.519 that everything shifts. Stone river, even the old ways of name. 3 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:14.240 A hill sax with time, a foot bath sprawls into 4 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:16.679 a lane because two neighbors struck up a friendship one winter. 5 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:19.760 But this river named Lutz are on some maps Irreber 6 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:22.079 in the older stories, though nobody uses those names in 7 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.239 daily talk, has always seemed immune. I believe that until 8 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:28.519 the morning I saw it right. Every Monday, since retiring 9 00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:30.800 from the map in office in Donostria, I've come down 10 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:33.520 to the reclining curve beneath a willow, drawing water levels 11 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:35.759 and the idle changes brought on by storm and season. 12 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:38.520 It's an old habit, almost a ritual now, but I 13 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.840 still carry abatto field notebook pencils, two pairs of glasses. 14 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:44.679 Routine STEADI is the fog that creeps in after years 15 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.240 a professional, certainties evaporate. And so I found myself last 16 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:50.759 March proaching on that squad like and splattered bench by 17 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:52.799 the foot bridge, squinting at the shallows, not out of 18 00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:55.759 boredom but habit. It was too early for bickers or birds, 19 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:58.320 and the mislapped around my ankle's tall wound over the river. 20 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.799 The stones in the water, larger boulders pushed here by 21 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:04.000 last month's flood, were revealed in an odd hush as 22 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.480 the sun called up the valley rim For a moment, 23 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.719 I paid little attention, distracted by the cold and the 24 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:11.560 faint ache in my knees, until a widening goal caught 25 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:13.599 the top of the bridge, glanced along the current and 26 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:17.040 picked out shapes albong yet oddly rhythic. They glinted in 27 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:20.640 the shallows, their arrangement suddenly and unmistakably legible. See u 28 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:23.840 h a t zie The word floated there sew hatza 29 00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:28.159 k classic basque, And though the coincidence struck me only 30 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:31.120 after a moment, his surname here the Siouetes of family's 31 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:33.560 backery stands just down the lane, sent wafting through my 32 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.760 Monday ramble, like a friendly reminder to eat. I blinked, 33 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.480 looked away, then back. The ladders remained, but if I 34 00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:42.079 shifted a pace left or right along the bridge familiarity 35 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:45.079 in mavel from many were except the precise midpoint, where 36 00:01:45.079 --> 00:01:47.519 the low sun struck flat, the semblance vanished, the stones 37 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:51.760 and shadows reverted into formlessness. I stood adjusted my glasses 38 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:54.879 the strange cart He faded within moments, dissolving as the 39 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:57.079 sun lifted and the undertow altered the surface of silver. 40 00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:59.560 I crouched and tried to puzzle out which stones might 41 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:02.719 make up these Z. When I looked straight down, nothing inspired, 42 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:06.959 no chisel marks or arrangements from above. Only scattered pebbles, 43 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.199 some barnacle, some pressed deep with silt. Only at that angle, 44 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:13.360 at that hour, did the name exist. Nerves humming. I 45 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:15.680 grabbed my sketch pad and worked by memory before the 46 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:18.680 river re arranged the story. I drew the long flat 47 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:20.719 stone for the cross of the Z, bulges for the U, 48 00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:22.879 the ottook on the final that echoed our ancient bass. 49 00:02:22.919 --> 00:02:27.080 Typography fell fragile, already half illusioned by the time the rinsang. 50 00:02:27.639 --> 00:02:30.240 I thought of natural coincidence first. After so many years 51 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.639 reading forms into maps, you catch your mind tricks. But 52 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.680 the choreography was uncanny, the spacing, the weight each stone 53 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:40.000 leaked into alignment only from a singular angle book siu Hatze? 54 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:42.240 Was it just the word leading to my mind because 55 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:44.360 of my habit of buying bread from assessed su Hatze. 56 00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:49.039 There's a danger in pattern seeking. A cartographer's occupational hazard. Still, 57 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:51.439 I penciled the positions on my working map, careful to 58 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:53.120 note the day of time, the angle of the sun. 59 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:55.960 As the clouds tuggered the light away, the river smoved over, 60 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.360 empty again, as if erasing itself behind me, That strange 61 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.479 ripple of sceining fascination tinged with something quieter, more reflective, 62 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:05.560 lingered al for breakfast. By the time I reached the bakery, 63 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:08.319 my hunger was an after thut. I couldn't shake the 64 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:11.280 sensation of the word assembling itself for me, privately, without 65 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.639 witness or purpose. In those first hours, I hesitated to 66 00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:17.360 mention it, even to myself. Perhaps I had been awake 67 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:20.319 too early, or the reflections had tricked me. But then 68 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:24.199 I remembered rivers hold stories differently from stone. Water stores 69 00:03:24.199 --> 00:03:27.120 them in movement, not in place. At a sat alone 70 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:29.520 in the kitchen, chewing a slice of barley bread, the 71 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:32.639 question stubbornly returned, as the river always written, and as 72 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:34.560 simply never stood in the right spot to see it. 73 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:36.840 Over the years, you collect a kind of map of 74 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.960 your own routines, one that brazed community, landscape and memory. 75 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:42.479 Mine is written in the rituals of a small bus 76 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.719 town that purchase along the lertz et Etisande. I came 77 00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:48.520 back here after thirty years away, after a retirement stole 78 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:51.400 the steady shape of my working days. I was supposed 79 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:55.680 to rest. Instead, I started pursuing the tan, slow recurring rhythms, 80 00:03:56.039 --> 00:03:59.240 mapping them in lairb ways, places where the elders gather, 81 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:01.719 on coal benches, where children leap from rock to rock, 82 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:04.800 where the scent of sorrow signals evening. I mapless for 83 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:07.240 any one else, then for myself, a record against forgetting. 84 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.599 Most of my neighbors tolerate this with the mewsewarmth. My 85 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:13.599 field notebooks, spattered and marked by rain, are a familiar site. 86 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:15.840 As I looped past the market square, pausing every few 87 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:19.040 meters to measure or not an odd bit of dialect ata. 88 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:21.879 The last of the town's true fishermen, delights in teasing me. 89 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:24.519 Your feet no more past than my old dog, He'll say, 90 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:26.639 nodding from beneath his bass bare as I passed by 91 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:28.959 the steps near Sarjeant punto Witch's Point, a name far 92 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.399 older than Christian memory. Beneath our Lady's bell tower, houses 93 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:35.120 crowd narrow lanes of bat at stone red tile, roofs 94 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:37.680 still drip from each weak washing, and window boxes brimmed 95 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:40.720 with flowers as spring approaches. The bakery sits at the 96 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:42.839 corner of the square, run by the same Yuhts, a 97 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:44.720 family whose name I read in the river, though it's 98 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:47.079 also said the actual family name was once Erica, the 99 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.519 basque for stream, before a long ago tax dispute. Markets 100 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.360 are a gentle cacophony, soft exchanges of onions cheese as 101 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:56.959 to cutover weather gossip. Children cluster by the river. Favored 102 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.199 stones pressed between their fingers are thrown to plunk the water, 103 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:02.800 each ripple another memory. Local festivals like Gauge are the 104 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:05.399 night Festival and frill banners that echoed the same riverside 105 00:05:05.399 --> 00:05:08.120 colors blue gray, lichen green, the red of crumbling brick. 106 00:05:08.759 --> 00:05:11.480 The river itself is near a mighty nor mek. It 107 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:15.319 meanders and splits, forming small islands and secret innots, sometimes 108 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:19.000 edged with new flood debris, sometimes gorged with meltwater. Pabbles 109 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.720 gather at the narrowing south bend, creating tiny isles the 110 00:05:21.800 --> 00:05:25.120 children claim by seasonal right. The willow trees lean low 111 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:28.240 as a feeveswopping, and every so often someone leaves, reverbond 112 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:30.680 or a painted stone at egeryhat would anile, another spot 113 00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:34.439 honored more by tradition than necessity. Along the square and awkward, 114 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:37.399 faded neural watch as overpasses by the blue swelling stylized 115 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:39.879 river painted by local students in the nineteen seventies. It 116 00:05:39.959 --> 00:05:43.720 surface into ovem with cryptic shades, hucks loops, dots that 117 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:46.720 resemble letters only if you half close your eyes. No 118 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:49.879 one quite remembers what they were supposed to represent. The 119 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:52.040 elders laugh when I ask at the river's memories, or 120 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:55.199 maybe its secrets. I note this in my book, alongside 121 00:05:55.199 --> 00:05:57.360 the local saying that seems to predate even the mural. 122 00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:00.439 The river remembers before we do. There is history too, 123 00:06:00.839 --> 00:06:04.040 written low into the land. A marker stone ways high 124 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:06.560 and hunched, stands near the willow's roots, so old that 125 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:08.720 the text carve upon has eroded into a series of 126 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:12.279 shallow and readable bumps and walls. Eggers Keyny, who teaches 127 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:14.720 local history at the primary school, swears that the inscription 128 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.319 was never deciphered, though teenagers have tried by daylight and 129 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.920 candle and failed. After generations of tracing paper rubbins, these layers, ritual, place, 130 00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:24.120 memory make up the texture of it, asando the weather 131 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:27.160 that supports even my odd mapping habits. In this town, 132 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:29.639 small deviations from the expected shape of things I met 133 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:32.519 with a kind of gentle acceptance. If the river's path 134 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:34.720 tosses up a new rock over night, the children might 135 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:36.360 give it an aim and the elder's nod, as though 136 00:06:36.399 --> 00:06:39.040 it had always been there. Maybe that's why for the 137 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:41.399 rest of that week I hesitated to mention what I'd seen. 138 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:43.959 I told myself it was a trick of sunlight, or 139 00:06:43.959 --> 00:06:46.480 perhaps my mind, trained by decades of aligning every feature 140 00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:48.160 with a cord and is simply caught in a pattern 141 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:52.000 seeking moment. But the question gnawed at the mornings, was 142 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:55.360 I missing something everyone else already knew. Tuesday came chill 143 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.680 and bright. Determined to check my curiosity, I arrived earlier 144 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:02.040 than usual, waiting before mister deven mcgun to thin again. 145 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.319 I took up my vantage on the footbridge, heart beating 146 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:06.439 with the kind of measured excitement that had once accompanied 147 00:07:06.439 --> 00:07:09.439 the appearance of a repenansul on a satellite scan. But 148 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.519 this time the word wasn't there, or rather, the stones 149 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:14.920 had shifted suddenly enough that from the right spot, in 150 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:17.279 the right gold soaked clare, I could read something something 151 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:22.639 else t x O r I teasori. Third, the same 152 00:07:22.759 --> 00:07:25.600 unmistakable alignment of stone and shadow resolved only from that 153 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:27.800 sweet narrow angle as the river caught the early sun. 154 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:30.439 I couldn't tell if the arrangement had changed by the 155 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:33.240 river's own movements or by someone seen hand. There were 156 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.279 no footprints in the muddy bank, no obvious signs of tampering, 157 00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:38.879 just a pebble here, a water worn slab there, outlines 158 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.319 forming almost against a will. I found myself glancing around, 159 00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:44.920 half expecting to see some clever child dart way giggling, 160 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:47.319 or perhaps the local dog nosing stones while his owner 161 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:50.120 lingered at the vickery. But nothing moved on shore except 162 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:53.199 the quick, sharp silhouet of a wagtail. I allowed myself 163 00:07:53.240 --> 00:07:57.680 a dry chuckle teasory. Indeed, the memory prickled. Just yesterday 164 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:00.079 I'd seen young maons catching the same mugtail beneath the 165 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:03.439 stand of Reed's further upstream. Over the years, I've admired 166 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:05.720 Maelon's talents. Her bird water colors have pride of place 167 00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:07.680 beside the post office, but the river had no way 168 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:11.560 of knowing about yesterday's drawing, could it with a cartographer's discipline, 169 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:14.360 and marked the shift precisely in my note book. I 170 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:17.279 compared sketches those who had some letter stones here now 171 00:08:17.319 --> 00:08:20.720 re aligned as teasery to day. The differences were unmistakable. 172 00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:23.680 Stone's displace, light angling at a slightly different slant, and 173 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:26.240 new cluster drawing the sharp tail. If thou are, the 174 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:28.959 more I stare, the more it felt systematic, not just 175 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:32.240 the thrum of coincidence barading as miracle. Determined to test 176 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:35.519 my growing suspicion, I waited for signs of interference. If 177 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:38.240 children had moved the stones, they'd leave scrapes in the mud. 178 00:08:38.919 --> 00:08:41.399 If a prankster had set this up, I'd find footprints, 179 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:44.279 or perhaps a discarded glove ostick hues to nudge rocks, 180 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:47.120 just sir, But the bank was undistowed, still sly me 181 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:49.399 with last night rain host to nothing except the sharp 182 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.360 prints of a heron's midnight visit. Unable to hold my 183 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:54.799 tongue any longer, I brought up the sighting that afternoon 184 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:57.080 with eggs Kay and history teacher, as we walked the 185 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.440 market lay while she gathered ingredients for Thursday's soup. I 186 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:03.360 expect it's a prize, or at least some flicker of curiosity. 187 00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:07.600 She listened, frowning at an onion and shrugged, It happens 188 00:09:07.639 --> 00:09:10.399 the river likes to gossip. And then before I could 189 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:12.480 press the point, she steered the conversation away to the 190 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:14.720 way scold children now use more Spanish than bask on 191 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:18.440 the playground. Her reaction seemed so bland, so matter of fact, 192 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:21.200 that it caught me off guard. Was it not unusual 193 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:24.639 or was she refusing to humor me? After a moment, 194 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:26.720 I tried again with Ada at the bakery, hoping his 195 00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:29.480 word of face would betray something startlemant. Confusion, may be 196 00:09:29.559 --> 00:09:33.600 mockery at my expense. Instead, he grinned, spreading butter liberally 197 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:36.320 on to heel of bread. You only see what you expect, 198 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:39.080 he said. The River's written my name there for years 199 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.559 when I need it anyway. The other woman waiting in 200 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.159 line rolled her eyes as if she had heard this 201 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:46.879 many times, but Ada kept smiling. Once after my wife 202 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:48.960 got bad news, she saw a word to didn't tell 203 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:51.799 anyone what it was, didn't need to. They all seemed 204 00:09:51.799 --> 00:09:55.000 so un bothered, uninvested, as if these incidents were nothing 205 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:57.440 more than weather or the creak of flaw boards. Curious 206 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:00.799 only to outsiders. I couldn't tell if their was disinterested 207 00:10:00.840 --> 00:10:03.159 or a subtle way of shielding themselves from something harder 208 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:06.440 to explain. After another day, it became clear this was not, 209 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:09.600 after all, a solitary experience. Yet it was not a 210 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:13.320 secret either. If the river, however, erratically wrote names no 211 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:15.960 one else saw reason to require beyond a shrug or proverb. 212 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:18.879 This calm was its own kind of strangeness, the natural 213 00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:22.799 order inverted. Most villages leave a brick and pattern, exaggerate 214 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:25.639 odd happenings, attribute them to gostas saints, or perhaps an 215 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:28.840 old civil war. Here the extraordinary slid under the skin 216 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:32.080 of daily life, questioned by no one accept me. That night, 217 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:34.720 I lay awake replaying the simple outlines of the words 218 00:10:34.759 --> 00:10:38.320 I'd seen. My first instinct coincidence now felt less comforting 219 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:41.480 than inadequate. The pattern held a firmness that refused to fade, 220 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:44.279 names that shifted, words that meant something personal, but never 221 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:47.960 the same thing. On two mornings, the unjustifiable became systematic. 222 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.480 I started to feel less amuse him, more persistently, restlessly 223 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:54.120 curious why would the river write at all? And why 224 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:57.159 in this ephemeral tone, was it a trick of collective agreement, 225 00:10:57.840 --> 00:10:59.840 some communal way of reflecting the lived events of its 226 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:02.600 own sando, as if the river held memory better than people? 227 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:05.320 And why the above all did no one else seem to 228 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.320 want an answer. Faced with indifference around me, I found 229 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:11.759 my own curiosity growing sharper after that, a new kind 230 00:11:11.799 --> 00:11:14.720 of seriousness to cold. I did what any properly trained 231 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.440 observer would. I began a methodical investigation. Armed with notebooks, 232 00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:21.360 a small time piece, color pencils borrowed from old mapwork, 233 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:23.399 I returned to the river every day for two weeks. 234 00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:27.240 Sometimes I brought binoculars, sometimes nothing but my eyes and 235 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:31.960 my weary old boots. I lodged my observations obsessively exact time, temperature, 236 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:35.399 barometric pressure, or relic of meteorological training, when direction, the 237 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:38.919 number and location of pebbles. I rotated my vantage upon 238 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:41.039 the brooch down stream near the willow, at a flat 239 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:44.840 rock beside the playground, under the market square shadow. Each day, 240 00:11:44.919 --> 00:11:47.240 under each new angle of sunlight or weather, the river 241 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:51.039 station's pequiled or sure words and names, always shifting, but 242 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:54.840 always familiar, sometimes in simple block letters, sometimes in the 243 00:11:54.840 --> 00:11:58.320 curving sharply hooks cript of old basque, once in almost 244 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:02.039 Latin capitals, awkward and blocky, but unmistakable. The words linked 245 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:04.399 to the tempo of town life. Never ran on gibberish, 246 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:07.480 but names echoing those unwdding invitations. The painted banners hung 247 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:10.000 for Gorgeaya the list of newly confirmed children at church. 248 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:13.559 The festival itself loomed a week away. On the friday 249 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:16.360 before I saw Gorgea inscribed in cobbled whites and brands 250 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:18.360 of the far Bend, four days before the town council 251 00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:22.120 publicly announced final approval. Afterwards, people joked that the river 252 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:26.399 approved the council, not the reverse. I made careful colored sketches, 253 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:29.679 noting which words appeared where and when. I became more 254 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:32.799 diligent about recording false posities of those occasions, when, however, 255 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:35.960 intend I stared, the stones would resolve into nothing but randomness. 256 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:39.840 On overcast days, the river offered no messages. After heavy rain, 257 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:42.840 the stones hid themselves under the churning water. The more 258 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:45.159 I tried to photograph the phenomenon, first with my old 259 00:12:45.159 --> 00:12:47.639 digital camera, then my phone, the more frustrated I became, 260 00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:51.399 though letters blurred into shapelessness, or the sun's glare destroyed 261 00:12:51.399 --> 00:12:54.440 the illusion. Even adjusting the angle and retacking the shot 262 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:57.120 made no difference. The meaning dissolved in a camera's flat vision. 263 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:01.200 Only sketches made on sight following shadows. Wella's form caught 264 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:04.120 even a trace of what I saw. I became compulsive. 265 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:06.519 I had to test if it was just me. Perhaps, 266 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:09.000 as Ader joked, you only see what you hoped to see. 267 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:11.960 So I brought Maelm with me, the young artist, after 268 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.120 running into her while she was sketching a read wobbler 269 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:17.440 perch by Sorgeant Punter. She grinned knowingly as I described 270 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.120 my findings, shooting a laprin intocris blinds in her note book. 271 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:22.600 Be careful, or the river will rate you in two, 272 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:25.440 she said. I smiled, half taking it for a joke, 273 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.360 half a warning. Her eyes glinted with a combination of 274 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:30.759 mischief and gravity, not often seen in one so young. 275 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:34.159 We stood together at the river bank. I gestured at 276 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:37.639 the swirl of stones, asking if she saw names. She nodded, 277 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:39.519 pointing to a clump of rocks that seemed to her 278 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:41.360 but not to me, to spell me her mother's name. 279 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:44.080 I knelt trace him with the finger where the shadows cross. 280 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:46.200 In my mind it looked only like a rough m 281 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:49.840 at best. We passed the notebook back and forth, comparing impressions. 282 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:52.480 The more intently she looked, the more certain she became, 283 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:54.960 while to my eye the arrangement constantly flickered from way 284 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:58.519 to chaos. Perhaps the strangest revelation came when I compared 285 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:00.919 my wrap sheaf of sketches from all the other observation points. 286 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:04.159 Every spot with the clearest wares matched up by improbable 287 00:14:04.159 --> 00:14:07.279 coincidence with traditional gathering points or junctions where old town 288 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:10.799 legends lingered. The stones spoke most eloquently with children launched 289 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:12.960 boats at harvest, or where lovers had carved initiales into 290 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.360 bark decades before I remembered the marker stone by the Woollaw. 291 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:20.080 It worn crept a conscription and made another visit. Even 292 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:23.960 kneeling in the wet the faded carvings provided no clear message. 293 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.039 I traced the bumps with my fingers and realized I 294 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:29.679 could have made out nearly any wood given enough imagination. Still, 295 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:32.639 I wondered, had the rivers writing always brooded in these places, 296 00:14:32.639 --> 00:14:35.799 as secret texts woven into the land. The contradiction gnawed 297 00:14:35.799 --> 00:14:38.559 at me. Whenever I tried to mark stone positions with 298 00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:41.279 small labeled sticks, or used a gps at to precisely 299 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:44.000 map alignments, the arrangement would seem to shift itself before 300 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:46.600 my next visit, never brazenly, just enough for clarity to 301 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:49.480 slip out of reach. If I left a marker which 302 00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:51.960 between two pebbles, the next day, it was gone, swept 303 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:55.159 aside or buried in the silt, sometimes as stones themselves 304 00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:58.399 had skipped the short distance downstream inexplicably, or perhaps just 305 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:01.039 as any river would move its bones slowly over time. 306 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:04.519 Looking back through old weather load books, I noticed another 307 00:15:04.600 --> 00:15:08.080 thread of intrigue. After each severe stone, a flash flood here, 308 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:10.360 a hailstorm there, new names would a pear days later, 309 00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:13.320 sometimes memorializing people or events that had not yet entered 310 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:17.240 towned conversation. Once I found the Werbyser open hopes spelled 311 00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:19.120 out under the bridge just two days before the May 312 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:22.480 is unexpected recovery from illness. Another time, a word in 313 00:15:22.519 --> 00:15:25.159 castilion appeared after a visit from Spanish cousins of Yesta, 314 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:28.200 never before seen in that spot. The exceptions puzzled me 315 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:32.480 most On several afternoons, when the language camp hosted French guests, 316 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:35.120 A detected odd angular forms that looked vaguely like a 317 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:38.440 rivia in the stones midway along the north bank. As 318 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:41.120 soon as the visitors departed, the stones reverted to basque 319 00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:44.600 or familiar local references. I brought these findings to Man, 320 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.559 the oldest woman in tam whose slowgate and sharp observations 321 00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:50.480 had grown legendary. We sat together at the bench closest 322 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.960 to the council's herb garden, watching the kids run, a 323 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:57.399 flask of tea between us. Mine smiled, her voice papery. Oh, 324 00:15:57.440 --> 00:15:59.519 the stones liked to play when I was small, we said, 325 00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:01.919 The river down answers. We never asked why, only who? 326 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:04.879 For her, and perhaps for all of them. The phenomenon 327 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:09.159 was not a puzzle, but a feature one taken for granted. Testing, marking, measuring, 328 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:12.120 even trying to photograph seemed to have little effect. What 329 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.120 stood out. Sketches made in city while actively watching and 330 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:19.360 listening gave the clearest record. Photographs, video satellite images only 331 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:23.080 left smudges drains of meaning. The more mechanistically it sought prove, 332 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.679 the less remained The town's children, I realized had been 333 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:29.360 prone for this. On the first of May, a group 334 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:31.600 of boys waded into any deep channel, pointing out which 335 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:35.159 jumble looked most like their names. Look there's an aniko, 336 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:40.039 one shouted, No, that's mine. Another countered it seemed a game, 337 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:43.039 but their parents, standing enter, smiled, an indulgent recognition of 338 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:46.159 her right deeper than logic. That evening, as I wrestled 339 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:48.279 with maps and color pencils, a thought occurred. These were 340 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.759 remains corresponded almost perfectly to sights of communal importance, moments 341 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:54.919 of collective notice. Their writing was strongest, were a rhythm 342 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:58.279 of community throbs. But it also showed itself in anticipation 343 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.080 before a festival was announced, before or baby had been named. 344 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:03.960 Maybe it was all suggestion, I reason to send complex 345 00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:07.039 commune illusion, an elaborate act of predulece stoked by centuries 346 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:10.559 of repetition and local legend. Maybe the stones truly moved 347 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:13.039 only when the children secretly wished them to, or perhaps 348 00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:16.559 attention itself summoned the forms into existence. But the evidence 349 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.960 compiled over weeks refused to narrow to one possibility. There 350 00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:22.880 was wilfulness in the phenomenon, something not quite explainable by 351 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:26.319 psychology or weather, the River remembered before we did. Was 352 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:29.759 this merely met for or warning or both? After all 353 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:32.319 my careful charting, I had ended up with more uncertainty 354 00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:35.359 than confidence. This tension reached its peak on the Monday, 355 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:38.079 four weeks after the Oak morning, in a low lit 356 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:40.240 room above the bakery, I spread out my sketches and 357 00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:43.279 attempted to create a definitive record. I lined up column 358 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:47.119 after column, Collum's labeled by debt, observer, weather vantage. What 359 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:50.039 stood out blindingly was the lack of any lasting fixity, 360 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:53.920 nothing repeated exactly. It hit me then, perhaps what I 361 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.440 was seeking, though truth beneath the phenomenon, was itself a misunderstanding. 362 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:01.720 I craved a mappable pattern, but the River's writing performed differently. 363 00:18:01.759 --> 00:18:04.799 It responded in some quiet, relational way to who was looking, 364 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:07.640 to what the community felt or anticipated. The River was 365 00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:11.000 a kind of dialog, not a static object. That evening, 366 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:13.000 at the monthly dinner round table at the back of 367 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:15.359 the square's only restaurant, all former teachers and a few 368 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:17.599 ex union men, I broached the topic, hopeful and a 369 00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:20.400 little embarrassed at my intensity. With a cup of char 370 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:22.880 coffee in hand, I showed my composite map to the group. 371 00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:26.400 The commentary was brisp but revealing. I saw my own 372 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:29.400 name on my birthday when I turned sixteen, muttered Michel, 373 00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:32.960 eyes flicking away as if to conceal pride. Never since, 374 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:36.759 but only if you really look, added ederin pouring herself 375 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:39.480 another glass of cider. It doesn't come for those who 376 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:43.079 were just passing through. Eggerkine, older and sharper Tonight leaned 377 00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:46.039 in her voice, low, there's an old legend, the river 378 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:48.039 writes for those who truly see it. If you don't look, 379 00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:50.279 you'll never notice. If you do, you might not like 380 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:53.359 what you find. The others nodded, each with some memory, 381 00:18:53.359 --> 00:18:55.720 half admitted, half denied, of seeing their name or a 382 00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:58.039 word tied to a secret joy or sorrow reflected by 383 00:18:58.039 --> 00:19:01.279 the stones. Some believed the River's writing was strongest when 384 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:05.400 life changed, births, marriages, deaths. Others thought it an art 385 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:07.319 fact of childhood, a game that thinned with age but 386 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:10.720 never vanished entirely. As the laughter and singing floated up, 387 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:13.079 I glimpsed the possibility that had evaded me in measurement 388 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:15.319 and mapping. What happened by the river was not unique 389 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:18.880 to me, or even personal but collective. It was ever changing, 390 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.799 inexplicable except within the framework of a long sheer memory. 391 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:25.039 That shift. Seeing the phenomenon as an exchange, a dialogue, 392 00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:27.839 rather than an oddity to be pinned down, altered something fundamental. 393 00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:30.799 This wasn't a matter of trickery or faulty vision, nor 394 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.799 was it a supernatural event. It was a dynamic woven 395 00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:36.960 from the intersection of eyes, language, place, and time. The 396 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:39.200 river was neither mute nor all powerful. It was a 397 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:41.839 participant in now remembering as vital as the town square 398 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:44.559 or the rumblings of old psalms there in the sult 399 00:19:44.559 --> 00:19:46.799 that hush after desert. I let myself linger on the 400 00:19:46.839 --> 00:19:49.359 new question, not what appears, but how it is possible 401 00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:51.759