Grackles and starlings replace finches and buntings at the feeders this morning. I was never more aware of the changing aspect of nature than I am now, living here by the river. The river itself is mighty now. Two islands have been swallowed whole; the one we call Innisfree is a fraction of itself. The eddy is swirling, and water crashes like surf under the big bridge as it rounds the bend into Narrowsburg. The water is moving fast, with the far side, by PA, traveling against the flow, up-river until it meets the eddy and gets sent back, reeling. My husband understands the physics of this phenomenon, but I prefer to be amazed.

We have been blessed with some fine spring weather. Thanks to the thaw, the swollen river carries a full load of strange objects, dislodged from their places by the shore. I saw an entire tree float by, root ball and all. The first canoeists appear, and a blue raft waddles by at an impressive clip. We don’t dare to brave the inconstant tides with our fragile kayaks yet.

My daughter and I spent a morning in Callicoon recently. We walked down to the river, along the creek, which was rushing with brackish water. The river had doubled its normal width, and the water came up to the edge of the parking lot. We found a stick with a burl knob on top, a perfect walking stick, though a bit long. It was too good to leave behind, and as we walked back along the dirt road to the bridge, we made up a story of a girl, new in town, finding a similar stick.

In our story, the stick was darkened with age, polished by years of handling, and engraved with sets of initials. When the girl looks closely, she finds a piece of linen sticking out of a drilled crevice. The fabric has writing on it, names and dates, a kind of time capsule. She fantasizes about the people who left it, and her fantasies become her substitute for friends, which she finds hard to make. Finally, a new girl comes to school, newer than she, with the same name as one she has found in the stick. Our girl befriends her, and reality replaces fantasy, and is welcome.

What a feeling to walk with her, my real girl, and spin this tale together. A great little moment in life, rare, fleeting. The story was good on its own, but it led us further, into a discussion of memory and serendipity, of how memories can be conscious or deeper than consciousness. I reminded my daughter that her grandmother Mavis liked to go barefoot, as now she does. Wasn’t that a kind of memory? She reminded me of my first visit to Yeats’ tower, when I felt certain I had been there before, and knew just where everything was. Our walk itself was a kind of serendipity, spurred by the return of good weather, the need to be out and about, active and engaged with the world.

There have been more of those opportunities lately, with both children. They come at odd times, and are rarely planned. Often they are at the expense of some personal “free” time. As the children grow, and their lives become more complex, I find myself more aware of the evanescence of family. Not that they won’t always be my children, but that they may never ask that question again, or share that fear, or fantasy. If I’m not there for that walk to the river, will I ever know the story she carries inside?

Parents and children are not the only ones to benefit from these unexpected pleasures. Now that the weather beckons us outside, neighbors and strangers sometimes collide in moments of shared bliss: in the weather, a spied eagle, the rushing waterfall.

This week is “TV-free week,” part of a national drive to re-engage families with each other. For those of us who will take part in it, the challenge is to find these moments of serendipity and shape them into memories for life. It’s a challenge that could take more than a week.