Sitting by the Water

For as long ago as I can remember, one of my favorite experiences is to sit by a body of water and let my mind and heart listen. This past week I was given the chance to do it twice. First on my road trip to California, to celebrate granddaughter Sofia’s second birthday, I sat by the Pacific Ocean. Today, just 16 miles from my home, I went to Eldorado Canon and spent 30 minutes next to a rushing-with-spring-runoff creek.
Our companion on the road trip to California was our grandson Makaio, who said he had a great time with two people 50 years older than him. On our drive back home Miko came with me while MK stayed in California to grandma it up for a month. As I have said before-I love road trips for many reasons, but at the top of the list are the hours long conversations. I asked him somewhere near Arizona’s Painted Desert “What was your favorite part of the trip”? He thought for a bit and then said, “Sitting by the ocean”. Mind you, he had four days in Vegas, his own hotel room and my BMW in California. I told him “I totally get it”.
I then told him about the first time I went to the ocean. I was nine years old, it was on the Oregon coast. The power of the water to calm, stir the imagination, and reveal treasures is something that still grabs me. Where our California family lives, overlooks the ocean. Out their kitchen window you can see Catalina Island. This time of year every evening you can watch the sun settle into the west horizon from their. Miko said, “I could sit there for hours. Last night I went by myself and just sat there until dark”. We talked of places where the water provides solace. He lives right next to the Rio Grand river in New Mexico. “I have my own water sanctuary”.
Today as I sat by a rushing mountain stream where the sound is always the same, my too busy mind calmed down and just listened. Yesterday a friend asked me if I like to fish. I told the story of how on Memorial Day 1953, when I was four, my dad sat me down by Crockett Creek with my own fishing pole. He taught me how to put a worm on the hook. In no time at all I had an 8 inch Brook Trout. He left me on my own, and when he returned I had four more. Somewhere in our family archives I have the 8mm movie to prove it. I can still go to that very spot in my mind. A deep pool of stream water with clear water pouring over the boulders.

We have had a very wet spring—green is everywhere. The water of life has blessed us again. I take great comfort in knowing that the water I saw in the ocean this past week was once stream water pouring down a creek, into a river, then to the ocean and then back again.
Nature reassured me today. Onward and Upward,
Mark