Jonathan knows I don’t understand these things called raging waters. He knows I panic trying to understand how my world moves. He’s on the sunny side of the B&W river and I’m standing in a fog on the other. My mind is seizing up; I can’t comprehend mirrors and this river moving right-to-left for me and left-to-right for him.

I scream across the torrent “I’m lost!-where’s up river?-Do rivers really have tides?-How deep is a whirlpool”? My confusion makes him laugh, but he realizes I’ve always been a danger to myself. I’ve tested many whirlpools and this frightens most people. But not Jonathan, he thinks I’m brave. He wades over to my side of the river humming and walks my walk.

But there’s a river I don’t fear, Jonathan’s hands skipping stones on our family’s piano. His hands wade over the black and white keys, lightly tagging boulders and slipping on moss. I appear dull on the other side of our piano’s lacquered shore, but he knows I secretly fold his sheet-music into boats and set them free, up the B&W.