Chapter 07 · 3 min 24 sec
The Drift
A parent's silent vigil — the love that asks for nothing, only safety.
Lyrics· 222 words
[Verse 1] I stopped swimming against the current / I put down the oar I let the water carry me / to what it knows me for The drift is not surrender / the drift is trust in flow The river knows the ocean / I am learning how to go
[Chorus] The drift / let the drift take you The drift / what the current makes you The drift / not floating aimlessly The drift / is where the sacred waits to be
[Verse 2] I have spent so many seasons / building against the tide Controlling every outcome / with nowhere left to hide But the drift revealed a landscape / I could never force or plan The drift gave me the sacred / that the fighting never can
[Chorus] The drift / let the drift take you The drift / what the current makes you The drift / not floating aimlessly The drift / is where the sacred waits to be
[Bridge - mantra whisper over synths] Ishvara pranidhana / surrender to the source Ishvara pranidhana / trust the deeper force Let go / let god / let go / let god The drift / the drift / the drift / the drift
[Outro] Let the drift / take you home / let the drift / take you home
Short Story
*The current knows things the paddle doesn't.*
She'd been paddling against the current for three days when she decided to stop.
Not a dramatic decision. There was no crisis, no snapping point, no moment she could point to later and say: that is when I stopped fighting. She just became, at a particular moment on the third afternoon, too tired to continue paddling and discovered that the river, allowed to do what it had been trying to do all along, was going somewhere interesting.
She'd planned the trip with maps and timings and a route that made logical sense. The river had its own logic.
She let the kayak turn.
The speed changed. The effort changed. The view changed — she was going sideways to the flow she'd been fighting and she could see things she'd been too busy paddling to look at. A heron on a fallen tree. A particular quality of light on the water. The way the river curved ahead of her into something she couldn't see from here.
She arrived at the place she was aiming for — not by the route she'd planned, but she arrived. Faster than if she'd kept paddling against the current. Less tired.
She sat in the kayak at the bank and considered this.
She'd been paddling against things her whole adult life, in the belief that effort was the point. That the route she'd chosen was the right route. That the current was an obstacle to manage rather than a force to read.
She considered the heron. It did not appear to be struggling.
She pulled the kayak onto the bank and made tea.
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*The current has intelligence. Stop fighting long enough to feel it.*
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