My story as told by water, part IX

I have always despised the burning, choking sensation of chlorinated pool water rushing in through the nostrils. Sadly, it took me years to master not breathing through my nose. Imagine being the girl with the flesh-colored nose clip through those formative, awkward* years. Luckily, this skill developed** shortly before I joined a swim club held at one of the local high schools while I was in grade school and attempted to swim competitively.

Just as I was not particularly outdoorsy, I was not especially sporty either. However, I'm fairly certain the attempt to ensure some type of athleticism is a prerequisite for being an American youth. Out of all the athletic activities of my youth, swimming was the thing I seemed to fail the least at.

I was never the best. I don't recall actually winning any races. I do remember not sucking--brimming with a bit of confidence for receiving a ribbon for placing in breast stroke. A contradiction even at that age, I strove to collapse in upon myself walking around the pool to hide my thick middle and, yet, had an internal confidence (nee cockiness) for even being part of the club and competing. In the water, I was free, unencumbered by clumsiness or extra weight.

Recently, the orthopedic surgeon advised me to leave the treadmill behind and once again take up swimming to avoid further damage to my knee. While I've certainly swam laps here and there in recent years, this will be the first time in decades where I've actually attempted to train. Thankfully, I've got a handy new app to get me swimming a mile in six weeks and the confidence that I can still do that fancy underwater flip and keep on going.

*One could argue that I'm still in my awkward years.
**There is the slight chance that my brain has switched things up in order to protect the innocent and that it wasn't until much later I gave up my nose clip. Ah, the joys of the aging brain. I suppose we'll never know. The horror, though, of a swim meet with a nose clip!

My story as told by water, part VIII (aka the sabbatical)

While some little girls dreamed of babies and families, I gazed out the window at the weathered concrete deer in our front yard and spun stories for myself of careers and adventure. I was going to be an author and then a doctor/author and then a lawyer/author and then a foreign service officer. Flash forward several (several) years and water is my game. I'm lucky enough to use science and laws and words to fix rivers.

Suddenly, after almost 13 years, I'm being asked to try something different. Take a break. As of today, I'm officially on a two-month paid sabbatical. I've struggled with how to write this post because I realize I'm incredibly lucky to have a job where I get this opportunity, and don't get me wrong. I am supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-level excited. The big BUT in the room is that stepping away from my projects, responsibilities and being in the know is hard. Actually, it's practically physically uncomfortable for my type-A personality (can one by a shy, type-A introvert...because hello). And, if I'm being really honest, there's a little fear that I won't be missed, that the people filling in for me will do so a good a job that I won't be needed. Logically, I realize I'm being ridiculous, but there's generally no room for logic when packing emotional baggage. Combine those little nagging feelings with a marathon number of days trying to tie up loose ends and make sure everyone has all the information they'll need, and you can imagine how high strung I've been these last few days. I did a little talking to God yesterday, and I have a feeling that there's going to be some personal growth over the next two months ;-)

Now that we've gotten my issues out of the way, let's talk about how stoked I am to have time--and not just that time you have to steal at the end of the night--to write and to fan the flames of all of those ideas. Hell, I might even get all hashtag crazy! I have visions of waking up early to walk to the coffee shop and write through the morning, leaving my afternoons for reading or some other kind of creating. There may be some traveling, but I'm likely saving that for later this summer. Maybe I'll just embrace being a woman of leisure.


I added a sign to my office door.

My story as told by water, part VII

Some memories are more like apparitions lingering in the corners of my mind, all a bit transparent and hazy*. 

There was the flurry of activity that surrounds any kind of departure. Hugs and goodbyes to my mom and grandmother with, I believe, the promise to cook anything we returned with. Sitting on the banks of Lake Nasworthy, fishing pole in hand, I remember the waiting, the waiting and the worms. Perhaps there was conversation, adolescent rambling on my part, but those are the details that have been wiped clean. Left in its wake is simply the feeling of sharing a moment with someone you love, that moment where they share with you something they enjoy. There was the fish, small and covered in scales, not worthy of a meal but destined to become one. My grandmother, bless her heart, may never have cleaned a fish in her life, but she tried. Two bites. That's how long it took for me to slowly pull a fish bone out of my mouth and the number of bites for me process how wrong the taste was. I'll never know if the fault lay with my grandmother or the fish, but to this day, I don't eat much seafood.


*Have you seen Stories We Tell? Really good! I'll write a bit about it next month, but one of the themes very much touches on this idea. 

Weekending, a river walkabout

It felt so good to get outside this weekend. Scratch that. It felt freaking awesome to get back in the river this weekend. The minute my hiking boots hit the water, the tread slipping slightly, my body seemed to reboot.



Dropping temperatures, lower river flows and the autumn equinox coincided with my somewhat spontaneous need to find wilderness and minimize the number of people and buildings in my immediate vicinity. Luckily, I found two friends who didn't think I was completely insane for wanting to hike through a river. They focused their questioning of my sanity on my insistence that we strike out before sunrise.

Still, they acquiesced. The car was loaded with caffeine, river shoes, cell phones, apples, and a very excited Serena as we headed toward Baltimore and the Patapsco River. Once there, we transformed into intrepid explorers, searching for the perfect walking sticks among woody debris and setting important walkabout rules (i.e., crotch deep is our limit and what we use to determine the point we'll turn back).



The Patapsco's sand and rock strewn bed provided stable footing for our trek with depths that ranged from ankle-deep and higher. The water itself was clear and crisp. Rock and sand outcrops provided an interesting change of pace and the opportunity for treasure hunting. However, the sections where the water flowed faster, sliding over rock in a series of riffles, were my siren song.

What's your siren song?

My story as told by water, part VI

Not Spring Creek but a pretty river nonetheless.

In high school, my friend Cindy and her family had what they called a ranch where they went to escape the city. Really, it was just some land they owned and included a mobile home, deer stands and a four-wheeler. Running through a corner of the property was Spring Creek, the place where my adventure began.

One summer day, Cindy invited me and Jennifer (the other member of our triumverate) to come out to the ranch and hang out. I think I've been pretty transparent about the fact that I wasn't an outdoorsy person and wasn't raised by an outdoorsy family. I've always loved being near water though. Wearing our swimsuits and dragging our inflatable pool float/loungers, we made our way down to the creek shortly after arriving. Leaving our floats along the bank, we swam out to a larger raft in the center of the reservoir, the cool water providing much needed relief from the unbearable Texas sun. I remember laughing, talking and sharing as we lay on the raft. We weren't really lay around in the sun-type girls, however, and were soon craving a bit more adventure.

Three giggling, chatty girls decided then and there to become explorers of the Texas wildlands, navigating Spring Creek as if it were the mighty Nile. Lying prostrate on my float, using my hands to paddle along, I followed the others out of the reservoir and into the narrowing creek. Long grass and weeds along the bank would occasionally brush against my bare leg, violating my personal space and sending a shiver up my spine, and periodically, I would have to brush channel-spanning cobwebs from my face. This might be the first appearance of the coping mechanism I like to call my nature blindness*.

I can't say how long we were out there. Looking back, it feels like we spent hours paddling along before we finally decided to stop. We found a shallow, cobble-lined section of the creek in which to sit. As conversation buzzed around me, my eyes focused on the water at my feet. Tiny black things clung to the rocks, and leaning in closer to the surface, I struggled to figure out what they were. Looking down at my thighs, I noticed a couple of the same things clinging to me. My head seemed to detach from my body and float above me like a balloon as it dawned on me what I was looking at. Without thinking, I was on my feet, slapping, dancing and flailing about as I tried to get the baby leeches off of me.

I can't tell you what happened after that or how we got back to the ranch. Perhaps self preservation has wiped these memories all eternal sunshine-like. I just know that for at least one afternoon I felt like a fearless explorer capable of great feats. You know...until the leeches came along.

*Nature blindness is my apparent ability to not see things in nature that scare me (e.g., spiders, snakes, bugs).

My story as told by water, part V

photo by Kate Gardiner

Have you ever been water skiing?

In high school, my best friend's family owned one of those motorboats meant to be driven at alarming speeds over great expanses of water, and I was lucky enough to get to join them for a couple of summer trips on one of the local lakes. The Texas sun was always relentless in its intensity, constantly reminding us how uninhabitable the west should have been. Taking to the water was your only real alternative to sealing yourself inside an air conditioned home. The wind and spray coming off the waves as the boat skipped across the water was the kind of refreshing that I think only a dog riding with its head out the window can understand.

The boat ramps are now closed at Twin Buttes Reservoir because of the drought, but back in the '90s there would be a line of folks waiting to put in. We were never there to fish but, instead, had a need for speed and a desire to be pulled recklessly behind a boat with nothing but a rope. It really is amazing what the oblivion and fearlessness of youth will lead you to do. But I digress.

I was never good at water skiing. In fact, I'm not sure what I did actually counted as skiing. Really, I never excelled at anything that involved a level of mastery over my own body, and water skiing was no different. A girl can only withstand so many false starts and attempts to get her feet under her. Even with wobbly legs finally underneath me, there was no grace in my form. In fact, if you were on Twin Buttes 20 years ago and remember the incredible girl who sailed around the lake bent at the waist, we may have very well been ships passing in the night.

My story as told by water, part IV

As light ebbed from the cobalt evening sky, I thought not about the damp bangs, pasted to my forehead by the humid, post-storm air, or the inky darkness that began to envelope us. Instead, my attention was solely focused on the gentle whir of the cast net as it sailed through the air, its splash as it met its mark on the Choptank River and the notion that this might be one of the coolest, weirdest Friday nights I’ve had in a while.

I try not to talk about work a lot on here, but every now and then I'm just so thankful or blown away by an experience that I can't stop myself. Friday was one of those experiences. Spring is spawning season for migratory fish, and once the water starts to warm up a bit, herring, shad and other migratory fish begin to make their way up rivers along the coast looking for a little loving. 

When the guys from Maryland DNR asked if I wanted to come help collect herring eggs [to grow baby (technically fry) herring to stock other rivers], how could I say no?

Standing along the banks of the Choptank, we cast about on the hunt for the elusive female herring whose eggs were ripe. The window can be incredibly narrow; also, it was really hard to type the word 'ripe'. We fished this 25-foot section of the river for more than three hours and only found two females who were ready to get down. The male herring were plentiful.

What came next was far more ritualistic (even spiritual) than the laboratory exercise I imagined. I kept thinking I'd be taught some kind of fertility chant (I wasn't). Seated on nearby rocks and lit by headlights on the state truck, both roe and sperm were milked from the few herring collected and combined in a stainless steel vessel. One of the guys stirred this strange mixture with a turkey feather while river water and a special powder were added. This process continued until only the fertilized eggs remained in the river water. These were moved to their new nursery (aka a sealed plastic bag and cooler-type contraption) and immediately driven by a third member of the team to their temporary home at one of the state hatcheries.

As I watched the truck speed away, I couldn’t help but feel even more alive, maybe even a bit more womanly (yes, a little odd). I silently bid these new little herring farewell and promised to keep fighting to make their new home in the Patapsco River as hospitable as possible.

My story as told by water, part III

Not all of my early years in the water happened in swimming pools.

When you think of Texas, water probably isn't something that you immediately associate with the state. Water is a daily part of life in Texas, especially whether or not it will rain. We talk a lot about rain...and dust. Still, we were lucky enough to have a few local watering holes.

The photo above was taken at Lake Nasworthy*, locally known as Lake Nasty Water. I don't really know why we called it that. Perhaps because of its mucky bottom? We only ever went to the lake for events. It wasn't the kind of place--we weren't the kind of people--to go hang out at the lake just because. In fact, my memories of it are spotty at best and largely associated with driving past it on my way to the airport or hanging out at my friend Audrey's house on the water. Audrey had a ferret, saved spiders and would find snakes in the grass near the boat launch. She was the closest thing to an outdoorsy friend that I had. To the younger me, she was both crazy and exotic.

There was one 4th of July where we joined the throngs of people headed to the lake, the car packed tightly with lawn chairs and blankets, to enjoy the fireworks. Even that was more about the cacophony of sounds and tepid display of lights than the water. The only time I remember actually going in the water was during a group picnic-brouhaha-thing at the university lake house. Lacking the carefree nature of my friends and acquaintances, I was the girl in cheap, slip-on water shoes edging her way into the water and squirming as her feet sank further in the mud. 

*I'm going to spare you the lecture on how I now know it's a reservoir. False advertising!

My story as told by water, part II

I don't recall being aware of how incredibly hot Texas was until high school. It's as if someone flipped a switch, and I suddenly realized how much I despised sweating or the way in which my hair would cling to my face. Still, memories of swimming pools and summers spent in the water have been a part of my story since my beginning.

Summer after summer being driven to lessons at the San Angelo Municipal Pool, a cool Pueblo-style building built during the '30s by the WPA. It's where I learned all those fancy strokes and eventually took the lifesaving course where you learn to take off your jeans and turn them into a flotation device.  All the while my grandma watched from stadium-like steps along the side.

I remember my eyes, red from heavy doses of chlorine, and how I wore that embarrassing nose clip to keep from inhaling water. Quickstepping across the sizzling concrete trying to avoid scraping up the bottoms of my feet. I know they made it rough to prevent slipping, but wasn't it painful?!

The just-for-fun swimming trips were always to Brown's Pool. It was on "our" side of town and right next door to a trailer park. The dressing rooms were grungy, but they had the best tubes for floating and a high dive. Note my graceful diving skills in the photo above.

There was the above-ground pool we had in the back yard with the deck built by my grandpa (see backwards swan dive above) and afternoons spent floating on my back, looking up at the clouds. A couple of summers even involved competitive swim club at a local high school. As I grew up, there were pool parties at my friend Cindy's and perhaps a bit more self consciousness at the thought of putting on a swimsuit and actually getting in the water.

A part of me will always associate summer with concrete and chlorine.

My story as told by water, part I

My first memory of water isn't of trips to the beach. It's not swimming lessons or playing in the backyard pool.

White, fake fur coat zipped with the hood pulled tight to ward off the chill in the air.  My feet pedaled my Big Wheel furiously near the apartment's pool area, eyes squeezed shut. Memories of the plastic tire grinding against concrete and what I'm sure is a faint smile at the freedom of my four year-old self barreling along.

I've lost time over the years either due to the unreliability of a toddler's mind or because it was a freaking long time ago. I don't remember why I stopped. I only remember it was abrupt, and when I opened my eyes, my Big Wheel was poised at the edge of pool. I can't tell you what color my trike was, but I can describe the pool drain in the deep end and how it seemed as deep as the parts of the ocean where I imagine sharks live. I know that, despite my young age, I knew I had escaped something by stopping just in the nick of time. Somehow, even then, I already had a healthy respect for water.