Not Southbound, Just Waterbound

I' ve mentioned here how lately I feel what I can't describe other than homesickness. Recently smacked out of another "I can make it work!" reverie, I'm also feeling the pull of the combined forces of the mining disaster, another terrific David Sutherland documentary called Country Boys, a visit with my family last weekend, and just the direction of my life in general.

You can take the girl out of the Valley, but you'll never take the Valley out of the girl, no matter how old she gets or how far she travels.

I came of age along the Ohio River, in the valley that separates Ohio from West Virginia. The river is a powerful memory, and the economic driver for that region. Today, eastern Ohio and the northern panhandle of West Virginia are suffering from a complete lack of economic growth. There are no high-tech companies vying to get into Bridgeport or Martins Ferry (if my friend and mentor, Eric Fingerhut, can turn this around, he gets my vote for Governor of Ohio). There are only ghosts of steel mills and other factories, remnants of the glory days when life along the river meant security and even prosperity.

My mother's house is gone now, but oh! how I remember sitting on her porch on those warm river nights, gazing into the black wall of mountain foothill that rose from the thick veil of river mist, listening to the barges roll up and down as they taxi coal, steel, waste. I remember before then, how the river was my witness to countless rites of passage into womanhood along the banks in her tall grass. When I drive east to reach her now, and come around that bend that brings us together again, I feel safe, known, believed. The last time I drove back produced an ache I did not ever expect to feel or believe for someone who had worked so hard to get away from all that never could be possible in small river towns.

Now as I turn another bend in life, all that I know is that other things are possible, and that what may someday make me possible is attached to the other end of the golden thread that keeps my heart anchored gratefully in that place, those now grey towns that gave us Lou Groza and poet James Wright, Dean Martin and Clark Gable. I am not a Southern woman, but I am waterbound, and in full moon's light I see with extra clarity, the running is over. The realizing begins.

I want the river now, to wash me clean, give me one more chance, tell me what I need, where to go, what to be next. This song by one of my soul's champions, Dirk Powell, practically puts me in a trance, helps me give myself over to that longing that will not be denied. Listen just a little, please.

Waterbound
Dirk Powell, Time Again, 2004

http://www.dirkpowell.com/music/mp3s/timeagain/Waterbound.mp3

I went out late one night
Moon and the stars were shinin’ bright
Storm come up and the trees come down
Tell you boys I was waterbound

Waterbound on a stranger’s shore
River risin’ to my door
Carried my home to the field below
I’m waterbound, no where to go

Carve my name on an old board wall
No one know I’s there at all
Stable’s dry on a winter’s night
Turn your head you can see the light

Black cat crawlin’ on the old box car
Rusty door and a fallin’ star
Ain’t got a dime in my nation’s sack
I’m waterbound and I can’t get back

It’s” I’m gone and I won’t be back”
Don’t believe me, count my tracks
River’s long and the river’s wide
I’ll meet you boys on the other side

So say my name and don’t forget
The water still ain’t got me yet
Nothin’ but I’m bound to roam
I’m waterbound and I can’t get home