A magical world

And yet the Danube

Although I wasn't looking for her, when I met her, something became clear. It wasn't love at first sight, it was love at second. And then I knew. That "I know!" moment lasted for an infinitesimally short time, but it guided the rest of my life.
The Magic World is everywhere and nowhere. We have to know where to look and when to listen, and if we're lucky, we'll discover it hidden everywhere. Under the leaves or among the stars, in people or in gods, in books or in Music. A Magical World that contains us and yet we don't Know.
Each one's World seems to differ from the World of the others and yet they all weave, like roots, into a Greater World. One of my Worlds is a water, a river. The Danube.
I discovered the Danube somewhat by chance thanks to a meteor I saw one December on Channel 36. And astronomy makes no mistakes. Back when comets were hitting the Earth and the Moon was closer, water began to cover the planet's surface. A small planet with a big Moon in a distant time.
With every comet or drop of water that fell, the seas got bigger and the oceans bluer. But the stars are not the seas and the oceans. The work (until the stars) is done by rivers.
Rivers have many names: here we call it the Danube, a little further on the Volga, over there the Amazon, the Nile, the Ganges or, among the Moldavian hills, the Jijia.

And yet the Danube!
Today we know it there. It always was. Well, maybe not always, but She is there before us and will probably be there after us. We humans.
But that's not the point. Just as we are not (that) important either.
The Danube exists for a whole continent or a whole corner of the Universe, with water, birds, fish, willow fluff or mosquitoes. The Danube is where I discovered it once upon a time, somehow by chance, when I was looking at the stars and wanted to catch a fish. And then, long ago, I Knew and even more - I Understood. I understood the connection between the background noise of the World and my Anxiety. After the first encounters, the emotions held me captive for days and nights, full or half, as in a great Love.
For a while I thought fishing was the reason for my encounters with the River. But the truth is that there I discover that something without which so much seems meaningless.
Perfect neutrality.
The Danube sees its purpose. It's found the weakness of the Earth, the difference in level, and it's made its way. Regardless of human superstition or assumption, the Danube goes its own way. It digs out the white, splits into arms, only to meet kilometers downstream and split again. It burrowed through the mountains and then formed cloves. It closes and opens new channels, with high and low water (elevations) in secret years. With its currents, whirlpools and linear stretches, with banks of sand, clay or limestone, the Danube tells us a story. A story of steadfastness and of things wonderfully simple.
The Danube, whether it was called the Nile, the Ganges or the Amazon, has been the subject of stories, songs, legends since man first appeared on Earth.
And everywhere man has left his mark. Shy at first, then increasingly bold. With each dam, each altered bank, another ambition grows. And with each of our ambitions, with each grandiose plan, something becomes unbalanced and then balances itself, albeit differently.
The Danube is the witness of Time and Life. In the morning mist, in the waves or in the still waters, in the petts or in the plastic bags, everything is quivering, everything is changing. Good or Bad every day.
Maybe even now I don't know what I'm looking for, but every time I meet Her, something in me becomes clear. I no longer have questions or need answers. I'm where I'm supposed to be. And someday the Danube, like a time traveler, will meet us all.