I keep thinking travel writing has spent years asking what

I keep thinking travel writing has spent years asking what a river can do for us — carry us, feed us, photograph well at sunset — instead of what kind of life it has when nobody’s looking at it. Some of the most memorable places I’ve been weren’t “scenic” so much as deeply in motion: flood marks on stone steps, ferries timing themselves to currents, whole towns listening to the water before making plans.