A Tribute to a Muddy River

Utah is a great place for creative minds.

Whether it's our high mountains in the east, our desert in the west, our red rock in the south, or our abundant forests, lakes, and streams, there's something here for every mood.

West Desert, 2008

Ever since I was a kid, my writing and the Utahn landscape have had a spiritual connection. My best ideas come wrapped in the stillness of a forest, the fire of a desert sunset, the whispered notes of mountain winds.

Henry's Fork Basin, 2007

You could say growing up in Utah is a reason I'm a writer.

And I have lots of favorite places here.

Some Salt Lake natives might not feel the way I do about it, but I especially love the Jordan River.

Like its namesake in Israel, Utah's Jordan River connects a large freshwater lake and a salty inland sea. It runs right up the middle of the Salt Lake Valley--and, conveniently, just beyond the fence of my apartment complex.

An urban park and trail system roughly forty miles long makes the Jordan River an ideal place to break away from city life even for just minutes at a time.

Jordan River, 2016

I fell in love with it in high school, thanks to brilliant teachers who knew how to turn the land into a classroom. The mile walk to get there from the school rewarded us with lessons much more real than a lecture.

A creative writing teacher used to take my class down to the river. He scattered us along the bank and for the rest of the class period we wrote poetry beneath the trees.

Since then I can't go to the river without taking inspiration home with me. It fuels my writing like the mountains do, and I'm glad I live so close.

Yet even though the Jordan River gives me words, I don't have words to write a worthy tribute to it. This little blog post is too short for what I really want to say.

But I still think about that river every time I say God dropped me into Utah so I could be a writer.