Kristin Siekman

Steven Marx

Ecolit X380

6 May 2007

Return To the River

Summertime always meant living in sweet serenity alongside the stream. From June until August, I never left the side of Cal Poly’s Brizzolara Creek. Best friends, we frolicked and tumbled on countless gray sedimentary pebbles that formed in a period of thousands of years as water thrust over a sundry accumulation of mineral, plant and animal material. Similar to the electric adhesion of the pebbles, the rivulet and I formed a cosmic bond that would last a lifetime: We two splashed over boulderous rocks, and, propelled through narrow crags and crevices of serpentine dams,we found a path that was never ending.

A mere child, I believed that I was as immortal as the eternal beauty of the brook’s glistening waters. As Thoreau’s eternal spring (Spring 22), the river would live in blissful otium (Sounds) and tranquility for the rest of time, leaving the business of the world to the distant civilization of man; I would spend my days with her, soaking up the heat of the sun’s rays and then plunging into the cool, translucent water. No experience was more invigorating than wading bare-skinned into the stream’s brisk and voluptuous waters; with each step, she cast undulating ripples, which playfully mocked the sun’s surging rays. At a temperature no greater than fifty degrees, she would break the heat’s momentary fatigue and bestow renewed energy.

The river is an everlasting source of rejuvenation. With the rotation of earth’s seasons, Brizzolara flows through the cycles of her life. During the winter, she draws her strength from the mountainside as rain is carried downward from the looming peaks into her swelling channel. In the springtime, she gulps her last swig of rain, and then summer proves her strength and invincibility; with little rain and warm weather, she endures and quenches the thirst of all who rely upon her water. In fall, as the animals prepare to lie down to rest, she once again makes ready for the upcoming wet season. Her work is never finished; her tale unfolds season after season, page after page, rainfall after rainfall.

*All Latin plant names on pages 2-7 come from Cal Poly Land: A Field Guide.

I stole away, into the wild, every bright summer day, and on the hottest of days, I took refuge in the damp shade of the riparian corridor among the arroyo willow (Salix lasiolepis) and the black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera ssp. Trichocarpa). I would dangle my feet to tickle the water’s surface. Her laughter rang in inaudible ripples that extended from my toes but were nearly imperceptible to the delicate mayfly (Ephemeroptera) that rested on the water’s surface at the opposite bank. I alone could decipher the river’s laughter; we shared a language that allowed us to pass our most intimate secrets. We revealed ourselves wholly to one another, but no matter how I implored, she would not divulge her age. For all of her youth and imagination, she possessed wisdom and intellect that commanded respect; she knew her path, and I envied her conviction. But this small secret she kept to herself, an unsolved mystery. Our relationship flourished because regardless of age, we had much to learn from one another. I taught her how to toss rocks, and she showed me how to juggle them across her surface. Together, we went the distance, until finally, in joint effort, we skipped a rock to the distant shore, a victory for the river and for me.

Years have passed, and I return to my faithful Brizzolara; no longer the bright-eyed innocent that she remembers from long ago, I approach the water’s edge, tired and wary, carrying with me the burdens of life outside of nature and the torment of advancing age; but a light still smolders deep within me, and upon first glance of my companionate stream, the light emerges as a star in the heavens at the break of night. A sturdy rock of serpentine lends me a seat, and I steal a moment for myself but I am not truly alone; the river is a part of everything she touches, and she will forever be a part of me. The shadows of trees are cast on the water’s surface alongside my face, and I imagine that I am a part of her as well; my face cast on hers, we share a reflection. I am rejoined with my childhood ally; I am again cradled in her steadfast pool and experience a novel admiration of her beauty. My river was once a coveted place of imagination where I played the part of a river nymph and danced and sung along her shore; how innocent I was and how blissfully naïve to presume that I could stay here forever.

We must take a lesson from Nature: “We need the tonic of wilderness – to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground” (Solitude 24). We must find ourselves in Nature by escaping to Her solitude; by dismissing a corporeal sense of the earth, we allow Nature to be our community. Thoreau said, “Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object” (Solitude 14). My escape to the wondrous river and her allied trees and flora gave me a place to explore my natural being. Again I became the river nymph and danced and sang some more: “--Ask not wherefore, here, alone,/ Crooning as I may,/ I come upon this lucid creek,/ And dream my time away” (imitation of William Wordsworth’s “Expostulation and Reply”).

I am overcome by my surroundings, and I long to capture this lively milieu and recall it for the rest of time. I take in the final budding of the hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea); its magenta flowers shoot from its three-foot stock and resemble the beaks of hummingbirds, which pollinate the flowers during March and from which it derives its name. This particular hummingbird sage is a brave soul: Typically native to the coastal scrub communities, a single specimen has ventured down the hillside to the coast live oak woodland, just above the riverbank. I expect the sage has come to admire the river, as I have.

I sit beneath a 75- foot western sycamore (Platanus racemosa). The age of the tree is as ambiguous as the river’s; although green and lush, the texture of its trunk gives the impression of old age: haggard and moss-strewn, the bark is rough to the touch. Its masculinity and towering strength seem impenetrable, but even the grandest of trees are susceptible to life’s afflictions; anthracnose (Gnomonia platani) is the predacious fungus that kills the babe leaves of a sycamore; the browning of early blooms is forewarning of a season’s devastation, but the sycamore wrestles its opponent; it gnarls and angles to avoid the fungi’s blows and emerges victorious; it lives to the next season and encourages the growth of new leaves. Waxy and tough, the leaves take after Father Sycamore; they ward off their enemy and aim in the direction of the sun in order to avoid the damp decay of ominous anthracnose.

Above the sycamore and other trees of the riparian corridor are lodged the trees of the coast live oak woodland, on the north-facing slope. The ecotone distinguishes the barrier between the two noble brotherhoods, and I am welcomed to the woodland by the coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia). The oak’s catkins gracefully sway toward me, calling me to reach out to their downy cones. I find the beautiful California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica); its glossy green leaves extend toward my face and brush against my cheek like a compassionate stranger, and I observe the final yellow-green flowers of the season; reminiscent of olives, they are rounded and whimsical compared to the slender, spiny foliage that surrounds them.

Supported by the river, the woodland protects a stealthy community of birds. It offers an abode sheltered from the wind and held at a steady temperature to shield the nests of the miniature blue seeds of life. The bushtit announces his den from within the shrub: “Pee-deep deep deep” (Cal Poly Land 109). And the chickadee contends with a resounding “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee!” But neither woodland nor river encourages competition between their feathered citizens; its territory provides solace to all members of its community amongst the green clefts and snags and in the thick brush.

Beneath the billowing canopy and the melodies of a plethora of plumed pipers, and down the slope of red dirt and snagging brush lie the water bloomers. Without Mother River, these water lilies would be lifeless and so they cling to her banks to drink from her supply of brisk, fresh water. Watercress (Rorippa nasurtium-aquaticum) takes root at the water’s depths and springs forth in shy, willowy green shoots while sedges (Carex ssp.) protrude from the creek’s channel (94). The fertility of the emerging greenery is the result of Brizzolara’s motherhood.

Her name fosters a vision of beauty, but in itself has little meaning. Brizzolara’s spirit resides in everything she touches and so she develops a unique relationship with every living being. Mighty oaks absorb her water from the very tubules of their grasping roots, and her body becomes their body. As their muse, the river nymph inspires the bud at the branch’s tip; five-pronged leaves emerge, each as a child of its mother tree and godmother river. The river bears many names: godmother of leaves, guardian of watercress, and mentor to a child and blossoming woman.

My river, my coach, my paradise lures me to her banks, and her message is simple: “Come away with me; stay by my side and escape into blissful Arcadia. Forever, you will be taken care of and my waters will welcome you with open arms and streams of kindness and love.” My sweet river of generosity will forever wash away my troubles and imperfections. In her water, I am accepted as the little girl that made daily calls upon a good friend and as a woman who must relinquish the weight of her burden and ignite her still-burning fiery light.

Works Cited

Marx, Steven, ed. Cal Poly Land: A Field Guide. Santa Maria, CA: Cal Poly Land

Centennial Seminar, 2002.

Thoreau, Henry D. “Spring.” Walden. 1854. Honors X30 Ecolit website, San Luis

Obispo, California. May 2, 2007 <http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden17.html>.

---“Sounds.” Walden Pond. 1854. Honors X30 Ecolit website, San Luis Obispo,

California. May 2, 2007 <http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden04.html>.

---“Solitude.” Walden Pond.1854. Honors X30 Ecolit website, San Luis Obispo,

California. May 2, 2007 <http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden05.html>.

Wordsworth, William. “Expostulation and Reply.” Lyrical Ballads. 1798. Honors X30

Ecolit website, San Luis Obispo, California. May 2, 2007 <http://cla.calpoly.

edu/~smarx/courses/380/ William%20Wordsworth.pdf>.