Simple Things: Water
Joni Mitchell hit the nail on its proverbial head: You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
In South Louisiana, water is a fact. Creeks, rivers, lakes, ponds, bayous, the Gulf of Mexico. Water, everywhere. So much water, sometimes you have to run from it.
No wonder I took it for granted.
In 2011, Shane and I found ourselves in Opposite World. Utah is high and dry. There’s actually an official name for that set of conditions: High Desert - a factoid I missed when we were vetting our new home. Deserts, you might know, are notoriously dry.
Pretty sure we’re not in Kansas anymore, honey.
Que sera, sera, we thought, naively. The reservoirs were full, and we were blissfully ignorant. We criss-crossed the Salt Lake Valley, seeing sights, and taking names. We prided ourselves on the quick adjustment. We were not just surviving, but thriving.
At some point, Shane got a hankering to go fishing.
Well.
After a near-record-low snowfall, the reservoirs were half-empty. Okay, half-full, if you’re an optimist, though, frankly, it’s hard for a fisherman to be an optimist in half-a-reservoir of water. We gave it the old college try, though. We drove our truck onto dirt that was previously a finger of the Jordanelle Reservoir. We struck out through mud, on foot, toting poles and tackle. We were fishing in a desert, y’all. And you thought you knew the definition of insanity.
Jordanelle Reservoir, Heber City, Utah
It occurred to me, after that miserable (and failed) expedition, that water is a necessary and desirable element. Water is life.
Maybe that doesn’t sound too profound. It doesn’t to me, either, on this side of the desert. But it started to wear on us, this lack of water. We began to disparage the Great Salt Lake, for its useless salty breadth. Animals, people - whole economies - are sustained by water. Water is powerful. It is soothing. It quenches hunger, as well as thirst. In Utah, we craved water like never before.
Here in the Midwest, water is again plentiful. We luxuriate in its plethora - boating, swimming, paddle boarding, and yes, fishing (and catching). There’s nothing quite like knowing a body of life-giving water is nearby.
I have occasionally found myself in a metaphorical desert as well. The conditions are strikingly similar to the real deal. Living things dry up and die. Hopelessness sets in. It is in the virtual desert - the desert of the soul - that the deepest thirst is found.
Perhaps it is necessary to experience the desert to fully appreciate water.
In his gospel, John recounted Jesus' invitation to drink of the living water. "Everyone who drinks this (well) water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (emphasis mine)
After the dry, parched desert, I cannot ignore such a beautiful invitation to be eternally quenched. Happily, a never-ending source of life is available to us, even in the highest, driest desert.