I fell in love with the sound of water. I was just a little girl, with my bright blue summer dress and pigtails in my hair, tripping over myself, collapsing into the homemade sandbox by the garden. I was in Vermont, at our summer camp, with its tin roof made of hollow melodies and the remembrance of rain. Brown siding emulated the deep hollow of a tree, and the house would blend into the woods, become the forest. I was no more than five, no less than ancient, and Grandma would take my hand and lead me down the dirt path to a bubbling stream. It trickled through the trees, and made music with the rocks and the leaves. I would stand there for hours, tossing pebbles into the water, watching them ripple on, extending forever.
A steep path of steps leads precariously down from the camp to the water’s edge. When I was very young, the steps were haphazard and constructed from pieces of logs and tree, cracked and housing hordes of tiny bug families. My slight five-year-old feet struggled at each step, and the journey to the water was interminable. Yet with the perseverance of a duck determined to waddle, I took this journey every day, sometimes twice. One step at a time, little feet reaching down to the next ledge, sometimes slipping, sometimes falling, always encompassed by the sheer everything around me.
The final step would eventually arrive. The handmade dock would be swaying and pitching in the water, and it would take me a good courage-collecting minute to step from solid earth to swaying wood. Then I would lie upon that dock and touch my fingers to the water, fingertips dancing beneath the surface, feelings its coolness, its promise. I would always search deeper, overturning rocks and unearthing disgruntled crayfish. If the moment was secure, I would reach out and touch one, then squeal with a heady mixture of fear and delight.
The water held secrets, and pieces of my soul. To this day, I listen to the way it caresses the shoreline, lapping against the earth’s edge. On stormier days, the water’s embrace is harsher, more insistent. Yet always it holds pieces of grace, and something close to forgiveness.
The water is rhythmic and reminds me of all the things my soul has been whispering for years. I am far from my five-year-old self, and yet I sense her there, drawn to the water’s edge. I descend those steps to the water; no longer afraid of the journey yet the distance to the dock is just as far. However, when I reach it, I have never been so far away. Now, there is no end to the descent, as when I was a girl. For when little Karabelle arrived, she always breathed a sigh, flopped down upon her belly and giggled, her fingers converging with the endless expanse of lake.
Now, I gaze down at my feet, startled by how far they are from my head. My fingers tingle, but they never touch the water.
I am relearning the strength it takes to bend my knees and reach the ground; to allow myself that surrender to the land around me. The sound of the water is no less palpable, less strong, than it has ever been. A hundred feet from shore, I can still feel its pull upon my heart, as though untangling the cobwebs and releasing forgotten dreams. The river is ancient, and therefore stirs ancient awareness in me.
Aware of my infinite possibilities, I search for that place where air meets water, and hope bubbles up to the surface and expands. Eventually, fingertips will break through the boundary once more, and I will remember how it feels to be immersed within this world.
Years later, I would walk that dirt road and realize the stream had dried up. To this day, I stand in the same spot I stood as a child, and imagine the water still flowing, wondering how something so alive could fade so easily away. There are other streams nearby – larger, prettier streams, but this stream had been mine while Grandma held my hand and passed me pebbles.
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