Time is a River

Dear Diary,

With all this ancestor research I'm doing I feel as if I am in a kind of time machine, journeying back and forth over decades...centuries even. I am reading a book that mentioned the concept of time being like a river, the Einstein concept. We flow along with it but we can get out and walk back, rejoin the river for a time.

I looked out the kitchen window and saw this image...the place where the new composted garden bed touches the field. A "river" of golden yellow honey locust leaves filled in the trough between. I must admit, I often find these visual equivalents to things I read about.

What occupies our minds directs our camera's lens, I think. Family history and the stories of my past are clearly filling my mind at the moment. It isn't so much wanting to know the dates and places as trying to reach into their hearts and minds; a nearly impossible task to be sure but by putting the people into context with the time they lived I can make some educated guesses. But in the final analysis we can never truly know a person without their words to guide us. That's what makes this journal so important for me.