Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
26 July 2008
Eileen Reutzel Colianni
Last year at this time, during a leisurely dinner on my sister's deck in Mt. Lebanon, my grandson Dominic suddenly announced, "Gigi, moving away from the river was the worst mistake of your life!"
Appreciative chuckles all 'round, then all eyes turned toward me.
"Dominic!" I replied, "Why didn't you say so then? I might have reconsidered."
"I was too young to know it then."
Hmmm. The kid's right. He was merely 5 when my love for riverfront living got trampled by the nonstop noise of traffic clanging across the Hulton Bridge. (The volume had rocketed 400 percent from my arrival in 1992.)
After reading that noise while you are sleeping can significantly raise your blood pressure even when it doesn't wake you (and the bridge noise was waking me), I reluctantly resolved to move up the hill onto one of Oakmont's serene, tree-lined streets.
In truth, I never felt completely at home up there, though the quiet I sought did prevail. And although the view from my front window was lovely and leafy, it never nourished me in the mysterious way simply gazing at the Allegheny River had for 11 years.
Then, Dominic's sagacious comment last summer converged with my own yearning for the river, increasing my sense of dislocation exponentially.
.I met a riverfront dweller in yoga class earlier this year. Even before I knew his name, I blurted out a request for him to inform me of any vacancies along the Allegheny. They occur rarely and disappear rapidly.
In March, my newfound friend came to class smiling and handed me a phone number. I called immediately. I visited the next day. I fell in love all over again. Six weeks later, I moved to a spot even closer to the Allegheny than previously and farther away from the busy bridge.
I'm smiling more now, calmed by the peace which ensues when one feels truly at home.
The first time Dominic visited, he rushed down the steps to the dock and skipped stones for 20 minutes. Mistake redeemed!
For my part, I am more entranced than ever by the simple act of watching the water's permutations whenever I have enough leisure to do so.
I've discovered that at dawn, the river glimmers with a veneer of golden light, announcing the rising sun before it's visible.
At midday, the surface sometimes becomes still, aglow in the emerald green of the foliage it's mirroring from the hillside.
At cocktail hour, when the sun's blazing, the Allegheny is a moving mass of glittering diamonds.
Best of all: When the moon is full or almost full, it shines a shimmering path of silver light from shore to shore.
As I sit watching, I often struggle to comprehend the magnetic power riverfront living exerts on me. Words fail as I try to capture my experience. Morning after morning, I walk straight to the view, even before coffee. The beauty I behold enlivens me, puts life's concerns -- major and minor -- into perspective.
I need to use someone else's words to get close to conveying the river's daily impact:
In Robert Barron's challenging book, "And Now I See ... a Theology of Transformation," he writes, "An encounter with the deeply beautiful is a meeting that shakes and changes the subject. The beautiful ... works its way into our bones, into the sinews of our life indelibly marking us ..."
Yes, that's it.
.I often wonder if my affinity for the river is connected to a vivid childhood memory. I grew up in South Oakland long before Pitt claimed it. One day, standing atop a hill at the edge of Frazier Field where we played pick-up ball, I noticed a winding ribbon of dark brown below. It was a river!
The Monongahela appeared almost immobile, a solid entity, weighed down by steel mill waste. In those days, few kids were tempted to clamber down the hill to explore water that didn't move. It was an unsightly stranger in the neighborhood. We averted our eyes from what we came to see as a necessary evil. If our dads were to work, the river would suffer. No one raised a voice to protest.
A half-century later, I stand on the bank of the Allegheny, watching water flow freely, white gulls hovering over it, geese and ducks on it, carp jumping up from beneath it, and all manner of boats streaming by. Some, alas, are too noisy, but decibel levels come nowhere near the 24/7 sounds that issue from the Hulton Bridge.
As I stand watching, I am also rejoicing. Three rivers, virtually dead, now teem with life. That seems to me to be akin to a miracle.
My second chance to be a daily river-watcher feels a bit miraculous as well.
First published on July 26, 2008 at 12:00 am
Eileen Reutzel Colianni is a writer and a retreat facilitator who lives in Oakmont on the river again, where she belongs (ecolianni@msn.com).