"The Tickle of a Riffle" by RiverSoul

     I grew up with my knees in the water.  Considering the natural curiosity of children, and the tens of thousands of small streams that move water across the surface of our world, I was just one in that endless parade of kids through the ages who have played in and wondered about naturally flowing water. 

     A kid busy wading in a riffle is the very definition of oblivious.  Some realized emotionally   that the water filling their playground was bound for somewhere else.  All played with a sense of wonder.  All were ever searching, with few knowing, or really caring, what they found.  All felt the cool tickle of riffling water, and sensed the ripple of brain waves responding.  Anything new was interesting, touchable, miraculous-- worthwhile.  

     Perhaps some, as did I, got riffle bottom dirt under their fingernails.  Perhaps some, as did I, developed a linear curiosity.  Perhaps some, as did I, and by fourth grade, knew a great love of geography and the searching out of places, both local and around the world.  Part of my searching was for where streams flowed, for the routes the waters in which I had played had taken on their journeys to the sea.

     Later, I thrilled to the meaning of what is called “the water cycle,” that describes how water evaporates from the earth’s surface waters, becomes airborne, and is returned to the land or oceans as rain, snow, sleet, or hail.

     And I realized that a stream can be used as metaphor for the linear journey of life:  flowing across the land as through time; twisting and turning through canyons of despair or out over broad, flat, uneventful, sometimes restful, plains; maybe collecting into deep quiet pools; sometimes stumbling over rough rapids; maybe ruffling through shallow riffles; or plunging into a fall, but ending, always ending, by releasing its essence into a reality larger and more grand.

     Who is to say which is more important:  the adult lessons we learn about water and the ways we use it to describe the human condition or the wonder a kid experiences when she or he feels the tickle of a bubbly ocean surf or that of a rushing, gurgling riffle.

     Where was your childhood surf or riffle?  For most adults that question yields only wistful memories of long ago.  At age 86, I’m still drawn to shallow, rippling waters where I become that boy again, experiencing the tickle of a riffle.

                                                                                                                                  --Elder  RiverSoul

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