overwhelming

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here and we're already two weeks into our Mississippi journey. To be honest, I've found it difficult to formulate what I wanted to say beyond very routine statements about what I've done on each particular day and I'm not sure how interesting that is. It's being in the thick of it that's producing this effect. I feel a little overwhelmed and I think a lot will become clearer on reflection.

HOWEVER, in the interests of getting going, I'm just going to record the strong contrast that I've been experiencing between my sense that the headwaters are essentially a wilderness area in which one can pass long stretches of time without being reminded of the human presence at all and my growing awareness of a very human history that has unfolded across the same landscape in the past few centuries.

On my first day of kayaking, I found myself lost in a wetland area where the river channel divided with little clue as to which route was the right one. Later in the day, looking down on the area from a road bridge, it looked far more benign - as if the gentle, and not particularly extensive, territory visible from up there were superimposed on a more disturbing one that could only be entered by water. I think this works well as an image for my sense that the present wilderness somehow occupies the same space as a very human sphere of action. It is as if there were more than one space somehow occupying the same place.