WATER

There is something mystical about a body of water that can appear so peaceful sometimes, yet turn into something so menacing at other times.  Have you ever watched, on a peaceful summer night when that crimson sun is setting low over the lake, down at that place where the sky, sun and water seem to simply melt together? It seems to be an only fitting and proper ending, capping off another perfect summer day. It is so conclusive and you almost expect that at some point, when and where they meet, for sky, sun and sea to whirl around and blend together—like those tiny glass pieces and beads in the end of a kaleidoscope—forming a spellbinding picture and a brief parting encore to the day, and then quietly fading away into a starlit night.

Then there are the days when the gray clouds seem to roll and churn out of a cold angry wind. Together, they make the water heave and boil in some kind of grim, macabre partnership, and the waves seem to stretch and reach out with white watery tentacles from the greenish black depths of the lake, grasping for a chance to tear away at anything that gets in its way. It pounds the shoreline in relentless fury, trying to devour the very land that holds it in and somehow seems to be the only thing impeding its forward progress.

Yes, water can make quite an impression. Without it, you’re dead in three days, and all the creatures on the face of the earth would not survive. We clean ourselves with it, we journey to other lands on it, and we use it as a gigantic moat to protect our shores from intruders. It evaporates and then comes again as rain to grow our crops and cleanse the earth. It’s the gentle tinkling of ice against glass that ushers in an afternoon cocktail. It’s the snow in the mountains that feeds the rivers—that feed the desert valleys and makes them bloom. Without it there would be no waterfalls, no rainbows, “Where bluebirds fly.” No “Up the lazy river by the old mill run.” No “Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water.”

Every drop of water that was on this earth a million years ago is still with us. It has been used over and over again. It has been evaporated, condensed and rained. It has been boiled away, condensed and rained. It has been sweated, condensed and rained. The tears that were spilled from the cheeks of a child in Kenya can, theoretically, come back as raindrops over India a few days later, or lie deep in an aquifer for centuries before coming out of some spring. It has been frozen for ten thousand years, melted and drank, and yes, it’s been consumed by animals and peed back out onto the earth in the greatest recycling effort that has ever existed.

But there has been a change. Mother Nature has, for years, been the filtering device that cleans and recycles our water. She has taken muddy rivers water, full of debris, and brought it back from the bowels of the earth sparkling clear, cool and refreshing. But then man, in his infinite wisdom to control the growth of crops and reduce the insects that eat them, and the weeds that crowd them out, has introduced chemicals that can no longer be filtered out and now we get to wash with it, and drink it. Just something else we have left our kids and grandkids.