The Taste of Water
Mill Valley, CA (February 2019)
I was walking then, as I often do now, and we came across a small stream. I was with a group of friends, hiking with a teacher through a quiet forest, learning to explore our world. I was ten.
I had always been told not to drink water from anywhere except the tap. All sorts of possible dire consequences might occur if I did. This time, though, our teacher said, “Taste the water. It’s fresh, it’s clean, it’s cold. There’s nothing like it.”
Tentatively I put my hands under the stream of water coming in a small waterfall over a rock, filtering through moss. The water was icy, and so clear the only visible indication of its presence in my hands was the sunlight reflecting off its surface. I slowly raised my hands to my mouth, slightly afraid but very tempted because it was so cold and beautiful, and the day was so hot and muggy. I took a drink and felt the deep cold first on my lips, and then slowly making its way down my throat, not unlike very cold ice cream on a summer day. It was delicious, and flavored with a hint of the earth.
Why do I still remember this moment so vividly, sixty years later? Partly, I’m sure, because it was the first time I drank water directly from a stream. But I have also learned never to take water for granted. The gift of cold, clear water becomes more precious with each year of drought. In Northern California we are now two years into the third drought of this Millenium, with the Northern Sierra receiving only 52% of normal rainfall since 2019.
The lack of water is obvious all around, in the bone dry grass and cracked earth, the fires and smoky skies, the near constant sound of trees being cut down and brush removed to create firebreaks. And now islands are appearing and expanding in the Reservoir. If that’s not enough, this past week’s record temperatures in the Pacific Northwest are a brutal reminder that we are all facing an uncertain future, and those of us in the West should never take our water for granted.
