The Ferryman's Late Spring Run: On the Discipline of Crossing Back When the River is High

There is a moment, late in spring, when the last of the mountain snowmelt finally reaches the lower rivers. The water, which has been manageable and clear, turns thick, swift, and loud. It carries the silt of a hundred unseen slopes and the broken branches of upstream storms. This is the time when any sensible ferryman—the kind who operates a simple skiff between two banks of a community—knows the crossing becomes its most perilous, and its most vital.

For those of us who write and build things in public, the spring runoff has a clear parallel. It’s that surge of energy after a long period of quiet cultivation. Ideas that have been frozen in the high country of our minds suddenly melt and rush downstream, converging into a turbulent, promising flow. We are rightly advised to launch our best craft onto this current, to point our bows toward the far shore of a finished piece, a published work, a new chapter. The discipline of the forward crossing is well-documented: set a course, pull against the current, arrive.

But there is another, less celebrated discipline. It is the discipline of the ferryman who, having delivered his passengers and their goods to the bustling far bank, must now turn his empty boat around and make the return journey alone. The river, in its high spring fury, is even more formidable when you’re headed back to where you started. The current now fights you at a different angle; the landing you left seems quaint and quiet compared to the lively destination you just served.

This is the unglamorous return trip of creation. It is the act of closing the laptop after hitting ‘publish’ and facing the silent, empty screen again. It is the moment after the newsletter is sent, the podcast episode is aired, the book launch party ends. The creative terrain you return to feels the same, yet everything has changed because you have crossed the river. You have delivered something into the world, and the world has shifted, however slightly, in response. To come back to your own blank page, your own quiet tools, requires a specific kind of fortitude. It feels like going backwards when the cultural imperative is always to move forward, to plant a flag on the next distant shore.

Yet, the return crossing is where the craft is honed. It is in that solitary pull against the flow that you feel the true strength of the river—the momentum of your own past work, the resistance of the new silence, the weight of expectation for the next journey. You are not the same ferryman who left. You have heard the stories on the far bank, seen what was needed, felt the relief of a safe passage. You carry that knowledge back into your solitude.

In late spring, the high water won't last. The river will subside into its summer languor. There will be easier crossings. But it is in this season of torrents that the ferryman learns the most about his boat, his river, and his own arms. So when the creative meltwater floods your banks, by all means, make the crossing. Deliver your work. But do not neglect the essential, humble discipline of turning the empty boat around, gripping the oars, and learning, once more, how to get yourself back home.

Notes & further reading

A few pages I came back to while writing this: