Water Works

It's officially spring here in Central New York since we just has the first really nice day followed by the first really crappy day! Just two days ago, it was almost 70 degrees and sunny. And today the weather turned to a mix of puffy rain-snow. Below is a picture of Trumansburg creek which runs by the coffee shop I work at. The melting snows have turned the creek into a swollen mess and the picture does little justice to how much water was in there. Local and actually read blogger Jonathan Cook makes it a habit to blog about the status of Trumansburg Creek from time to time. Those are nice, but nice isn't what you come to this blog for anyway, eh!? Yes, that's right. You come for lengthy exposition and the ocassional Daredevil and/or Green Lantern love post. Even farther below is a little snippet I wrote while at work and staring at the creek below. Enclosed water (lakes, streams, rivers, ponds, etc.) always hypnotizes me. Back home all we had was the ocean and this immensity of that seemed understandable. The ocean just was, but freshwater seemed to have to define itself within the limits of the land around it.

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By Garik Charneco

Enclosed water. Trapped potential. Jarred wonder. I think we can appreciate all this trapped water because something inherently malleable becomes stable. The lake's geography is just a way of containing those last bits of water too stubborn to follow their kind to the ocean. These streams, creeks, and ponds are the moisture that remains at the bottom of your cup. They remain, no matter how hard one tries to shake them free.

Growing up on an island, I never had much to see in terms of enclosed water. Any lake on the island, I just learned, is artificial, created when engineers dammed rivers. Oceans are too big. They leave giant blank spaces on the map, which my anal nature finds untidy. I realize that I am questioning random geographic formation, but I appreciate when something is defined by what influences it and not the other way around. That seems natural, like evolution applied to understanding.

Trapped water always has some land telling it where to go. An oxbow to the south. An inlet towards the fields. A marshland to blanket. It doesn't have to be freshwater per se. I spent a few summers with cousins in the Puerto Rican Riviera--La Parguera. There are no beaches there, however, instead a necklace of mangrove atolls just off the coast. My older cousins would boat us out there, to swim in the shallows created by these islands.

The gnarled roots of the mangrove trees clamber over each other. They poke into the sand below and mingle with each other. As they grow, they trap bits of sand and flotsam, creating an island. The waves sometimes lap at the weaker ends and create tiny jetties in the arching trunks. People eventually come and bore through these jetties, creating canals in the middle of the ocean.

I explored these canals during those summer breaks. I snorkeled them always aware of the three dimensions around me. I was terrified of the sea urchins that peppered the root balls. My older cousins would pick them up by their thin black needles and hold them above the water's surface. The urchins twitch and the bottom needles undulate trying to find a new grip on the roots.

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Yeah, I don't know what I meant either. Peace!