Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #60 Water

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

I have always loved water.

Glen Pilling gave me words for why: water, the gift of life.

The gift of life is what I see in the forest when there has been rain, what I see in the lawn after a downpour, what I see in the Spring as the crocuses pop up in the small foothills that lead to the prairies.

I love the water on the garden vegetables, water for the sweet peas, a sprinkler for the children to run through in the summer time, a small stream that comes out of the woods and runs down the gravel into the Shuswap.

I will always remember a raft trip down the Bow River, a once in a life-time event from me, riding on moving water.

In my early twenties I took a ride on a barge up to Anstey Arm on the Shuswap, long leisurely hours, the barge docking and unloading provisions for small cabins on the lake.

Just last year, I have stepped into a boat with my siblings and driven by Art Treleaven

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

He was giving all of us a drive by the shore of the lake, looking toward the highway, a reverse view of the water that I get in a car on a drive to Salmon Arm.  Yes to the view from the water.

I watch the Bow River as I travel west through the Rockies, seeing its size diminish until it is merely a brook. I think to myself, sometime I will trace this stream up to its headwaters.

I love to wash dishes, the warmth of the water, at the same time, the joy of easy removal of food.

I am never in a bathtub or a shower when I am not overwhelmed with happiness– the power to rinse my own body and the wonderful warmth of the water.

Right now during Covid, when I rinse the soap from my wrists and the backs of my hand, I am grateful for water.

I use water for cooking. I use it to make bread, to boil pasta, to steam carrots, to test if candy is at a soft or a hard ball stage. I use droplets of water to test if a frying pan is hot enough to put a steak on.

I love to stop by a fountain in a library or a mall or a grocery store, turn that spigot and have a stream of water arc up so that I can catch some on my lips.

I am just putting it out there that I have a lifetime of rich memories around and about water.

Arta