One Good Thing

Waterfalls power a perfect last day of summer

DATELINE: Today

WEATHER: Fine

HAIR: Wet

MOOD: Happy

Once I realized that the weather today was going to be perfect, I dropped all of the niggling little plans I had made — the emails, errands, and all the business-y detritus that crowds my Fridays, and decided to head to my favorite watering hole.

I am lucky to live in a place powered by water, and the older I get the more urgent my need is to get myself to the nearest creek, pond, lake or swimming hole.

I was an early swimmer (probably the only developmental step I’ve ever taken ahead of schedule), and today I retraced my steps and returned to the very spot where I first learned to swim, which is about 10 minutes away from my little home/office/teeny tiny empire.

I spent the first seven years of my life living with my family in a large house perched at the top of this waterfall, and I spent the first seven years of my life being carried and later climbing down into the gorge with my mother, sisters and our friends. This spot is completely unchanged from my childhood, and it remains a well-loved secret.

Today when I arrived there was only one other person there: a solitary fly-fisher. I sat on a boulder and watched him cast and cast and cast again into the waterfall. Each cast drew his line farther and farther out, and as the line arced into the sunlight, it glowed like a filament.