The wonder of water

The last place I lived in Massachusetts, I could launch my boat and be fishing the Atlantic ocean or I could drive about 20 miles inland and be fly fishing for bluegills and bass, either within about half an hour of leaving home.

At one time in Minnesota, the Better Half and I lived on a lake and I (we) could be fishing in five or ten minutes. Unfortunately, our family outgrew that house, plus we had the misfortune of having a world class barefoot water skier move in a few houses away. (At least this was before the invention of wake boats.)

Living on a lake tended to make me take for granted a bit the pleasures of fishing. If you can do something every day with little effort required, how special is it? These are not concerns that haunt me daily, but when I take time to think about them I realize how little I really know about myself and my fellow human beings and our relationship to each other and the world on which we live.

rivers bring more than fishing and swimming

Photo by J. Harrington

I share these thoughts because where we live now is about an hour’s drive from good to great trout waters and I’m now working as a volunteer on a project that, when completed, should greatly enhance some urban waters as a trout fishery. I’ve started wondering how that may relate to the urban quality of life. The planning profession has become more interested in integrating “nature” into the urban matrix. [My initial reaction to that was to wonder if that integration was to include mosquitoes and ticks.]

I’m in favor of having nature and the built environment complement each other. Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language, proposes several patterns on the relationship between the city and nature, for example:

71 STILL WATER    To be in touch with water, we must above all be able to swim; and to swim daily, the pools and ponds and holes for  swimming must be so widely scattered through the city, that each person can reach one within minutes.

I’m tempted to suggest we consider substituting fishing for swimming as another way to be in touch with water.  His pattern also suggests that there’s much to be gained by having nature be so much a part of daily life that enjoying nature as something special is then up to us when it’s regularly available. [Check Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder.]

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder." Writes Carson, "he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

It’s important to remember to ask the right questions in the right way, right?

The River

By Gregory Orr

I felt both pleasure and a shiver

as we undressed on the slippery bank

and then plunged into the wild river.

I waded in; she entered as a diver.

Watching her pale flanks slice the dark

I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

Was this a source of the lake we sought, giver

of itself to that vast, blue expanse?

We’d learn by plunging into the wild river

and letting the current take us wherever

it willed. I had that yielding to thank

for how I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

But what she felt and saw I’ll never

know: separate bodies taking the same risk

by plunging together into the wild river.

Later, past the rapids, we paused to consider

if chance or destiny had brought us here;

whether it was more than pleasure and a shiver

we’d found by plunging into the wild river. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.