Many years ago in Prague, I was walking to a cafe with a student.
“Let’s take the shortcut,” I said.
From the busy sidewalk, I led him through a door, down a quiet passage, into a courtyard, through another passage, into an abandoned factory, and out onto another busy street.
He was amazed.
“You know Prague better than me,” he said.
LIKE A RIVER
Today, that secret passage is gone.
Construction workers are busy turning the abandoned factory into another hotel.
Cities are like rivers.
When I go home to Virginia, and if it’s the summer, I’ll ask my father to take me and my kayak a few miles down the road to the bridge.
I then float back to the house.
But I have to be careful.
The river goes through a forest.
And to exit the river at the right place, I have to remember the rocks and trees.
But the river is different every summer.
Sometimes, the water is high and I don’t see the rocks.
Other times, a storm has washed away an island or blown down a tree.
One summer I missed the spot, kept floating, and had to walk a long way to get back home.
It’s always the same river.
But the river is never the same.
RIP secret passage
“Panta rhey” was the word of a.famous Greek philosopher, Heraclit, who.noticed the reality as well as as the waters of a river are never the same.