Water is Medicine

I was about 4 years old the first time I went to a river. It must have been a short trail, but at that age, everything in the world takes a long time.

The trail led under shadowy trees, which I now know as cottonwoods. At a certain point the path turned to sand, and I always knew the river was close then. I could smell the water through the trees, but back then I didn’t think very much about things like that, or how I missed them, or how good they were. Because nothing existed in comparison to anything else.

It was just the experience. Life felt like a sunbeam. And I was in the light, which was warm.

The dappled light would become my favorite. The ripples on the water I’d notice many years later, when I picked up a camera.

And now after all these years, I still find myself visiting rivers. As it passes, life begins to exist in memories. So now when I go to a river other memories of rivers past come up.

But I believe I can still exist in the sunbeam. And so each time I try, actually each day, to return to that place when everything took a long time, and the woods were mysterious, and I didn’t know any names.

“Water is the first herb,” a teacher of mine once said.

And its true, but is taken without notice. Every day, most people turn on the tap and water comes out.

I’ve had to haul all the water I used for drinking and washing and cooking. I still remember greasing the standpipe to smooth out the transit of the handle, and how that tiny step made my life a little easier.

Its the small things, in the end, that stick with me.

Which is why its funny to me that when people are bored, they will do just about anything to get away from the mundane.