An author, by the name of David James Duncan. He's written some of my favorite books: The River Why, The Brothers K, and River Teeth, among others. He is big on philosophy and is a stunning read in any case, but it is River Teeth that I would like to discuss today.
River Teeth
is a series of short stories that describe various "river teeth" Duncan
has experienced throughout his life. Allow me to provide the definition
of a "river tooth", a direct quote from the book, before I continue.
Duncan's hope in writing River Teeth was
I find the metaphor of a river tooth to be relate-able, and have similar desires. I may write journal entries that are titled "River Tooth #X", with the intention of sharing such stories. If you think that those stories would enrich you or entertain you, I encourage you to read them. But if they would bore you, feel free to leave them. They are in my river, anyway.
River Tooth (a metaphor): Our present-tense human experience, our lives in the inescapable present, are like living trees. Our memory of experience, our individual pasts, are like trees fallen in a river. The current in that river is the passing of time. And a story - a good, shard story - is a transfusion of nutrients from the old river log of memory into the eternal now of life. But as the current of time keeps flowing, the aging log begins to break down. Once-vivid impressions begin to rot. Years run together. We try to share, with an old friend or spouse, some "memorable" past experience and end up arguing instead about details that don't jibe. Chunks of the log begin to vanish completely... There are, however, small parts of every human past that resist this natural cycle: there are hard, cross-grained whorls of memory that remain inexplicably lodged in us long after the straight-grained narrative material that housed them has washed away. Most of these whorls are not stories, exactly: more often they're self-contained moments of shock or of inordinate empathy; moments of violence, uncaught dishonestly, tomfoolery; of mystical terror; lust; preposterous love; preposterous joy. These are our "river teeth" - the time-defying knots of experience that remain in us after most of our autobiographies are gone.
Duncan's hope in writing River Teeth was
"..to let go of what can't be saved, to honor what can and perhaps to make others more aware of, and more willing to accept and share, the same cycle in themselves."
I find the metaphor of a river tooth to be relate-able, and have similar desires. I may write journal entries that are titled "River Tooth #X", with the intention of sharing such stories. If you think that those stories would enrich you or entertain you, I encourage you to read them. But if they would bore you, feel free to leave them. They are in my river, anyway.
