Hell hath no fury like water

I had a stolen hour or two in Oakham on Sunday. I did a burst of cleaning and activity indoors but then found the sun was warmer than the empty house and decided to walk around and see what green things were poking through the neglected gardens. I ended up sitting on the lichen covered diving board, soaking up that warm sun and gazing with awe at the glass sheen of the murky pool water. It was a perfect reflection of the bare trees moving ever so slightly against one another, as the water rippled in the breeze.

I’ve always like watching water. Always. It got me through being a teenager, when I would walk the dog around Carroll’s Pond and watch the November wind wave it from one feeding brook to another tributary. I used the Thames as my beacon in all my London walks, often depositing myself on the South Bank to gaze at the thick brown riverway. It’s half the reason I go back to Beauport every year, where I stand on the lawn terrace and just lose myself in the awe of the mystical harbor.

Water is beautiful and calming and life giving and … frightening. 

Halfway through my tenure at Higgins, there was a major renovation of the gift shop. One fateful New Year’s Day, weeks after the newly polished shop opened to the public, a heating pipe burst in the classroom above and showered three floors with gushing water. I thought it was a bad dream after seeing a late night viewing of Titanic the night before. But it was all too real and required months of dehydrating machines, moving our office into a teeny tiny library, and a lot of destroyed materials.

I remember a CCD lesson about baptism or something… when we were told how water has the power of life and death. Such a simple, evident truth… and yet, so easy to forget. Well, maybe not to a fisherman or Tantalus. I drink water all the day long and appreciate its power to make my body feel better. I gaze at it in stupefied awe and relish its power to calm me. But only… only every once in a while do I remember that it has a fury to its power, a fury that destroys as much as it saves.

The skies are slowly wringing out the last of this week’s rainfall. But this is the third week in a row where the rain has filled the rivers and lakes beyond capacity. Puddles become ponds. Sump pumps exhaust themselves. Streets, basements, backyards are enveloped in the path of overflow. Water is showing its wrath in New England and reminding us that no matter how clever, how brilliant, how we try to maneuver nature, she is always, always, always more powerful than us or our flimsy creations.

I’m lucky in that the water damage hasn’t harmed my stuff or me. I can look at the overspill of Jamaica Pond with wonder and not fear. But, I’m listening Mother Nature. I know you’re pissed. And maybe… maybe it’s too late for us to make amends.