In New Book, Local Author Contemplates 15 Years on the Hudson River

SCHUYLERVILLE — Susan Meyer, a Saratoga Springs native who now calls Schuylerville home, released last month a book that compiles roughly 15 years’ worth of stories, observations, reflections, and photographs of the Hudson River. 

“River Time: Mindful Reflections from the Upper Hudson,” focuses on Meyer’s connection with a body of water that’s had a colossal impact on both the history of New York State and the nation. The Hudson has also been a source of inspiration to Meyer, who has experienced moments of profundity while kayaking upon it.

“I think it’s a great metaphor for life,” Meyer told Saratoga TODAY. “You never know what you’re going to encounter on the river of life.”

56 original stories and poems (accompanied by 73 full-color photographs) are drawn from Meyer’s journeys on the Hudson, where she contemplated existential ideas while encountering herons, ice formations, changing seasons, and even a Superfund dredging project.

“I get in my kayak, and it takes about one second before I’m in the zone,” Meyer said. “It’s this different perspective; all the usual mental chatter subsides and deeper insight becomes available.”

The book is organized into four thematic sections: “The More Than Human World,” “The Human World,” “Rhythms of the River,” and “The Inner River.” Each part presents a journey from the outer landscape to the inner mind.

One story in “The Human World” details Meyer’s interest in Saratoga County history, and how the remnants of hundreds of years of tumultuous events are still present today. After acquiring a copy of “Early Days in Eastern Saratoga County” by Grace VanDerwerker, Meyer brought the history book to an old local cemetery where soldiers from five different wars are buried. Meyer spent hours reading names from the gravestones and looking them up in her history book.

“The names and stories came alive there among the tombstones,” Meyer wrote. “I knew the gossip: who was highly respected, who were the doctors, the deacons, the soldiers, even who had been murdered. Somehow, I felt at home among all these personalities, as if I, too, am part of the long story of this land through which the river flows.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that Meyer is a meditation teacher, “River Time” is also available as an unabridged visual audiobook that’s narrated by the author and accompanied by hundreds of still and moving images, as well as the occasional sound effect. The result is an immersive experience that is both soothing and pensive.

“I feel like the book is for nature lovers, people who have a mindfulness practice, or anyone who’s seeking peace and steadiness and sanctuary in daily life,” Meyer said. “I think of it like having a refuge that is bigger than whatever waves you’re experiencing, personally or collectively. A natural landscape that you can go to, and it can put things in perspective so that things don’t feel so big.”

“River Time” is available in both a premium full-color print edition and a visual audiobook edition at the author’s website, SusanTaraMeyer.com.