20 March 2026
It’s a damn good question. And I remember it stopping me in my tracks.
(Curse the internet all you will. Sometimes it gives you moments like this.)
The tweet asks me plainly: What river have I crossed most often in my life?
It’s a no brainer, Bob: The Shenandoah River. That sly, shallow and dark, weaving-knot of a river.
I lived beside it for years growing up. Fishing it at night. Skipping rocks in the day. Crossing it over and over again.
To my grandparent’s house. To church. To soccer practice.
That slow and shallow thoroughfare of my misremembered 90s, my family, and my first fishing pole.
The math of it is too much to count.
Let’s just say I probably crossed it two or three times a day for a good ten or eleven years growing up. (Probably more on holidays.)
And now, when I go back to visit, even more crossings.
The math of it all is bigger than any place I’ve ever lived, and more important.
The big, sprawling myth of it in my life. How many songs? How many poems? How many times have I sat at a desk and written the word Shenandoah in a notebook?
I couldn’t try to put a number on that either.
But ask me again: What river have I crossed most often in my life?
It’s the same answer no matter how old I get, or how far away it feels.
Writing from Here 