Two years ago, in the winter, I was on the bank of the Birs River. It’s a small river that flows through the city of Basel, Switzerland, where it joins the Rhine River and the German border. I would ride my bicycle from the place I was staying to the Birs, park it on the bank, then walk along the riverside path. Using Google Maps as a reference, I would bike to the furthest point of my walk the previous day and start from there. Little by little, I left the city behind, then the suburbs, until I had walked up into the woods. I could see the breathtakingly beautiful river between withered trees. It really exists ― the kind of river in which Ophelia, in the painting, was floating.

The cold air pierced my nose, my head tingling with loneliness and freedom. The yellow, green, blue of the river stretched in front of me.

I was lost in my thoughts as I walked along the river. It wouldn’t take Ophelia long to sink and dissolve in the water. I and everything else there would eventually decay and become water too. The water sinks deep into the earth, becomes rivers seas rain, and pours down on life unknown to me.