Rivers are an unfamiliar concept to those of us in the California metropolis. We have the ocean, but its cultural meaning is entirely different. Our beaches are places of relaxation, or vacation, or beauty. The Rio Grande is more somber than that. When I saw the occasional person on a park bench watching the river, they did not seem to be the type that was “taking in the rays.” The act of watching a river is inherently an act of sadness. If you were watching the river, something weighed on you that an ocean would not relieve.