In Northampton Mass, the unseen valley of the place is formed by the Mill River.
To walk there adds adventure and territory to this otherwise quaint and happily-hippified college town.
What is the history of this river? Of the mill it must have turned? Who walked these bends before that mill was built?
Now you learn that everyone walks their dogs here, even if it looks more like the dogs walk the people through the trees, along the bank.
And today, scattered through the empty branches and bounced off the water’s flow, the light almost fools you into thinking it is not winter.
I find it hard not to think of spring, of the life ahead.
But down river is not the only beauty we live into.