Cathy Newman writes,””For Parisians the Seine is a compass, a way to know where you are,’ says Marina Ferretti, an art historian and curator. It is also, as the French say, fluide, a word with philosophical implications. Surrender to impermanence and flux, it whispers. Nothing stays the same. No use commanding the Seine to sit still. A river stilled is no longer a river. It changes with the time of day and season. Its currents carry the jetsam and flotsam of life and death — lost plastic toys, escaped ballons, cigarette butts (*Gauloises, naturally), empty wine bottles, sometimes even a corpse – as they swirl, churn, flood, and flow past the monumental architecture of Paris. You cannot step into the same river twice, Heracleitus tells us. C’est fluide.”
This is me, this is my life, this is my world. Nothing stays the same. When I saw the lost plastic toys on the landing of my stairs, it all swirled past me, as well. The constant movement of the tides of life is what has made and will continue to make me. You will never meet the same me twice. I surrendered long ago, and it was/is not a bad thing at all. Freedom and evolvement is hard work but if you can learn to flow through it, it is worth it, and you will never want to go back upstream of your own will, though tides and currents can seem to take you their sometimes, staying fluid eases the pain and soothes the soul.
Free photo from Hills Orient.
Seasoned 
I have learned to accept the current and not try to swim upstream (surely where the corpses lie), but it sometimes takes awhile for me to accept and surrender. I do believe this is one plus for aging – we cannot fight as strongly; we don’t want to use our remaining time struggling; and some things that used to seem urgently important no longer are.
You wrote this very well, dear Linda.
Oh, isn’t that so true. And today I was thinking, we spend half our life trying to acquire things we need and then the rest of our days trying to give them away to someone else who might need/want them.
OMG what a great quote that is!! I do laugh sometimes watching my grandkids with things like this because we truly are at opposite ends of the spectrum!
*Liking* this a lot…
so beautifully expressed.