Kern River Rat Dom

"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it."

Paulo Coelho

I am deeply in love with the Kern River, the Mighty Kern north of town which is diverted into a trickle by the time it arrives in the center of Bakersfield. The river bed in Bakersfield proper is dry, and has a sacred feel even while waterless. Part of my job is to get out of the river - and write about what its gift back to me and the world is to be, is to become. I have turned my children into River Rats. I phoned Coryn last week from out there, where my children and I were wading in the cool waters and the gold flecks winked back from our feet. "My kids and I are being River Rats!"

It is so hard to come back to "society" when one has been submerged in RiverRatDom

We manage, but it isn't easy.