Gravel crunched under my tires as my car pulled into the parking lot of the crew team’s boathouse at Rockett’s Landing. I arrived about an hour before the start of practice to do a few repairs, and realized this would be the perfect reflection spot. After walking down to the dock with wrenches in hand, I had a seat and watched the sun dance off of the small ripples in the water, making the river appear as if it was made of glass. Looking both down and upriver, I am surrounded by dilapidated structures and the burnt out shells of old warehouses. Old fishermen dot the shores and the smell of gasoline and smoke blur together. The exceptions to this image are the sleek and shiny “The Boathouse Restaurant”, and the luxury apartments that have developed next to it.
All of these structures adjacent to the river allow man and nature to be juxtaposed and reveal the important idea of the longevity of the river and our natural world. The river has seen the rise of Richmond from early settlers, through the industrial era, and into modern day. Throughout this time, the landscape has changed drastically, and the river itself was attempted to be controlled and manipulated through canal-building efforts, but as a whole, the river has not changed much. On the other hand, the warehouses dotting the shores have already served their entire purpose seeing as they are now only rusted, metal structures left over from the fires that scoured them. The building and development of the area is a cycle that ultimately ends in destruction by either the people who built the structures or by the natural landscape itself. Currently, the cycle is at the development stage with these new ventures that are beginning to replace the rusted structures. While taking all of this in, the sounds of the flow of the river remind me to always respect the power and longevity of the river.