Some mornings, the Narrow River gives me a photograph.
Other mornings, it gives me a lesson.
This morning it was driftwood.
Not the kind that stops traffic.
Not the kind tourists gather around and photograph.
Just an old piece of weathered wood resting quietly along the shoreline.
Its bark was long gone.
Its branches had disappeared years ago.
The smooth gray surface told the story of countless tides, storms, winters, and summers.
And standing there, camera hanging from my shoulder, I couldn’t help but think:
“That piece of driftwood and I have a lot in common.”
Now before anyone starts shopping for a retirement home brochure on my behalf, hear me out.
When I was twenty, I thought life was about becoming something.
Building something.
Achieving something.
Accumulating something.
At seventy, I have discovered that life is less about what we collect and more about what we survive.
The years have a way of sanding off the unnecessary parts.
The sharp edges.
The certainty.
The ego.
The illusion that we are somehow in control of the current.
And while I would never volunteer to repeat every storm I’ve encountered, I would not trade what those storms taught me.
Not for anything.
I’ve lost people I loved.
My mother.
My sister.
My dear friend Charlie.
And my Best Man and sidekick, Paul.
I’ve experienced disappointment, failure, uncertainty, and grief.
I’ve worried about things that never happened and spent sleepless nights over things I couldn’t change.
I’ve watched dreams evolve.
I’ve watched plans unravel.
I’ve learned that some prayers are answered with “yes,” some with “not now,” and some with lessons disguised as disappointment.
And through it all, life kept moving.
Just like the river.
The funny thing about driftwood is that from a distance, it looks like a fallen tree.
A casualty.
Something that has lost its purpose.
Nature sees it differently.
That same piece of wood becomes shelter for fish.
A perch for an osprey.
Protection for a fragile shoreline.
A nursery for new life.
Its purpose changes.
But its value increases.
The Japanese have a word for something similar.
Kintsugi.
It is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold.
Not hiding the cracks.
Highlighting them.
Celebrating them.
The fracture becomes the most beautiful part of the piece because it tells the story of survival.
I love that idea.
Because if Kintsugi teaches us anything, it is this:
The cracks do not diminish our value.
They reveal it.
When I look back on my own life, I realize that the moments that shaped me most were rarely the easy ones.
The easy years were pleasant.
The difficult years were transformative.
The cracks taught the lessons.
The losses deepened the gratitude.
The failures created the wisdom.
The setbacks built the resilience.
The heartbreak expanded the capacity to love.
And somehow, the gold found its way into all of it.
I’ve been blessed beyond measure.
A wonderful wife who still loves to travel with me and thinks I’m hilarious after all these years.
Children and grandchildren who remind me that life keeps renewing itself.
Friends who have stood beside me through victories and disappointments alike.
A career that allowed me to build something meaningful.
And photography—a gift that taught me to slow down long enough to notice what was there all along.
These days, when I walk the Narrow River with a camera in hand, I am no longer searching exclusively for birds.
Or eagles.
Or osprey.
Or perfect light.
I am searching for reminders.
Reminders that beauty often arrives disguised as ordinary moments.
Reminders that every sunrise is a fresh start.
Reminders that gratitude is a decision.
Reminders that weathered things can still be beautiful.
Perhaps even more beautiful.
That old piece of driftwood will never be a tree again.
And that’s perfectly fine.
The river transformed it into something else.
Something useful.
Something enduring.
Something worth noticing.
Maybe that’s what aging is supposed to feel like.
Not becoming less.
Becoming more.
More patient.
More grateful.
More compassionate.
More aware of what truly matters.
The young tree sought the sky.
The driftwood understands the river.
And if there is a lesson hidden in that weathered log resting quietly along the Narrow River, perhaps it is this:
Life will leave its marks on all of us.
The tides will come.
The storms will arrive.
The currents will carry us where we never intended to go.
But those experiences are not the end of our story.
They are the gold in the cracks.
And one day, if we are fortunate, we may discover that the things we thought had broken us were actually shaping us into something far more beautiful than we could have imagined.
Like driftwood.
Like Kintsugi.
Like all of us.
Naturally.
I’d love to share my posts with you. If you subscribe, they’ll come straight to your inbox—most days, like a little note from me to you. It means a lot to know you’re reading along.
Browse my complete art portfolio and shop for prints at imagesbygacioe.shop
Leave a Reply