our spirits cry out for water

There's something about water that draws me in. This may come as a surprise to some, as I'm not known as a beach person or even as someone who's up for swimming in anything but highly chlorinated and translucent water. So let me be clear when I say that I'm drawn to being near water, not necessarily in it.

As I walked the other day by the river in town toward the bench where I can watch the water lazily flow by, I realized that this newest favorite outdoor spot has something in common with others from my past. Beyond the shared uncomfortable seating, these three all involve water in some form.

Soon after we moved to town, my family had our first bike/walking path experience along the Hocking River, and it's been a favorite spot for me ever since. Though we've had some high water and flooding scares this past year, this river is usually fairly low and slow-moving. Bugs and birds are in abundance in the warmer months, so this is a major plus in the entertainment factor when I sit on that favored bench, high above the riverbank. But it's the water that draws my attention, even when it's almost still. The reflections of the world around always turns my perspective upside down, and the water itself is mesmerizing. I'm drawn to this place when I need a quiet moment or when I simply need to sit with my emotions.

That's it. That's the connecting link-- each of these places has provided the space to sit and mull over the emotions that get too big for the regular, everyday environments. Somehow my thinking can clarify by the water in a way that it simply cannot on the living room couch.

Though it's a location that I'm only able to visit once or twice a year-- in a good year-- the waterfalls at Swallow Falls State Park have absorbed some of my tears and many, many of my emotion-laden thoughts. I've visited in good times and gazed upon the rushing waters as a representation of the joy and gratitude I was feeling. But I've also spent time on one particular rock, looking over the swirling, gushing flow of the water and wallowed in despair, uncertain about so much in my life. Wallow is the right word, I think, because I've cried self-pitying tears there on more than one occasion, in the darkness that can even come to such a fortunate life. I've sat there with dear friends, reveling in the noisy quiet that falling water provides. I hope to never live too far from this special spot, so that I can return in future good times and bad.

I had to go searching in physical photo albums to find an actual photograph of the third place on my mind, and I've been out of college so long that it no longer looks like this, but has instead been replaced by a much gaudier and ostentatious fountain instead. (It's one of the pics in this online photo album, and it makes me sad.) For the four years that I spent on the "picture-postcard perfect" campus of Elmira College, I most definitely had an overflow of emotionally challenging times and many of my evenings and late nights were spent sitting or lying on the concrete benches beside The Fountain. Many a journal entry was written under the breeze-blown spray of this chlorinated water, words that carried the weight of a late-adolescent young woman, sometimes in love, sometimes confused, always totally in her head. I haven't been back to campus since graduation over 20 years ago, but to know that I could never revisit this spot as it was is just a little heartbreaking. I'm thankful that I thought to take one lone photo before I left, because there will always be significance to my life in this space.

Who knows what's to come. Perhaps there's a creek running through a forest right now that will bear witness to my future struggles, a place I've yet to see. It's a safe bet to say that if I find it, my emotions and I will be drawn there.


Title inspiration: "Cool Water" as performed by Joni Mitchell with Willie Nelson