The other day I woke to the dripping and drumming of rain on the alder canopy at the back of our farm. I got up and opened the back door to let the cat in out of the pitch black morning. I stepped out into the rain and turned my sleepy face upward to catch a few drops, but no drops hit my face. It wasn’t raining. It was only a dense fog coating the alders and falling as it gathered on the drought stressed leaves. This is about all the moisture our garden has received in the past few months. Except the few times I decided to wrestle the turgid hose around the yard and christen a few of the newly planted hydrangeas, conifers and perennials with well water.

I have been thinking about water a lot this year. Planning a post, taking notes. Since January I’ve filled 50 pages or more in my notebook with thoughts and observations about water. I’ve taken innumerable pictures of all the watery places I visited. Yet water, from the rain drop, which we dodge, to the Pacific Ocean, which we barely comprehend, I find hard to write about. I was thinking if I could just contain it in a few words, like a water feature in a garden: little falls, little pools and a recirculating pump. But I loath water features. Too much hamster on a wheel for me. But the wild gurgling, puddling, splashing and roaring of water, the soaking and seeping, lapping and bubbling of water, the dribbles and drizzles and drownings that I want to write about become mute in me, though they say I am 60% water, that 3 days without water can lead to my death, so important and powerful is water.

I live in a flood plain and I know the power of water. If I were a pagan I’d worship it. Maybe I should. I know most of my travels involve watery places. Last weekend Michael and I hiked a portion of the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. The trail follows Steven’s Creek through Steven’s Canyon. You never get so far from the creek so that you can’t hear it speaking to you. And when you get close to where it has been eroding the rock of the canyon for eons the rush of water is symphonic and deafening. And also cleansing: all the worry of the week washes down stream in this tunnel of pummeling sound. Like a good massage it drags you out of yourself ,yet leaves you deeper within.

I am not finished with water. How can I be? The rainy season is looming just ahead. I’ve only skimmed the surface with this post.

The canyon is chiseled and polished by the force of the creek.

Those are not toothpicks, but 40 foot trees piled up  by the creek at a narrowing in the canyon.