Go to the Water

I miss the water. I've only just realized this. Or maybe it's one of those impulses I can't control. But suddenly, I want to be down at Rock Creek. Last weekend on the way home from Crack Barrel, I had this need to go to Great Falls. I want to feel the water, see it rushing on. It's always rushing somewhere, going places I can't go, but for a moment, being near it, there's a vicarious rush of release. Water calms me. It centers me. It cools and soothes something inside me that's growing wild, wild enough to want to break away. I keep thinking back to the summer Jb and I stopped at Rock Creek Park every day after he picked me up from work. We'd work our way down the rocks to the water's edge, and he'd venture across the water to the larger rocks, sit there, smoke and watch the water run. My favorite picture of him is on one of those rocks with the trees shading him and the river. There were butterflies swirling up from the banks, and the water was cool to the touch. We talked about going down there in old shoes and clothes we didn't care about to wade around, splash in the water, play in it like two big kids, but we never did go. I wish we had.