Look and Please Do Touch the Water!

Was remembering bad too? Or just part of being human?

Tahquamenon Lower Falls.

Look but do not touch!

Maybe you received this warning as a child.
Maybe you have seen this sign in a shop of fragile items, or a museum, or an art gallery.

The hardest place for me to follow this rule is when I’m around water. Water is calling out to be held or to hold. It is meant to be felt. It flows that we might know how it feels. It’s a poem that needs to be touched before it can be written.

Last weekend I celebrated my birthday with a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. On Saturday, my actual birthday, I hiked around Tahquamenon Falls. The Upper Falls are some 200 feet across with a drop of nearly 50 feet. In the springtime, as winter ice and snow are melting, 50,000 gallons of water rush over the falls every second. The Lower Falls are actually a series of smaller falls, each uniquely captivating. In recent years, a bridge—allowing you to walk over the lower falls—has been installed, giving access to several spots where you can touch the water.

Sitting on a large rock, bending down to dip my hands in the river, I reflected on the last year of my life. On new, old, and recurring lessons.

As a child in Sunday School, I learned about Lot’s wife and how “looking back” turned her to salt. The lesson to be learned was that looking back was bad. But to me, looking back looked a lot like remembering. Was remembering bad too? Or just part of being human?

Attending Mass with my Catholic grandparents, I learned another lesson. The priest walked up and down the aisles dipping a palm branch into a small bowl of water, flicking it into the pews. When those drops of holy water hit my face I giggled. Strangely, I felt like I belonged and also a little rebellious. As a Methodist kid, I wasn’t allowed to participate in most aspects of my paternal family’s faith, but in that moment, it didn’t matter where I was baptized. The water touched me. And as it did, the priest said, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” How could I remember my baptism without looking back? Surely the priest wouldn’t tell us to do something that would turn us to salt?

Tahquamenon Falls are sometimes called Root Beer Falls because of their color.

Standing near the largest of the lower falls, I didn’t have to work to touch the water. It found me. A soft mist gently sprayed my face, causing me to remember my baptism, which also means remembering my birthday. I was baptized on my third birthday.

My birth story and baptism story cannot be extricated from one another. They both evoke intense and complicated emotions as well as memories. My birthday used to usher in an annual debilitating depressive episode that in the hardest seasons culminated with a long hospitalization. Hiking around Tahquamenon Falls, I remembered what was and what is, and how much life has changed.

It’s not that Autumn’s arrival no longer beckons me to look back and remember. But that my understanding of looking back and remembering has changed. I no longer fear looking back. Giving myself permission to remember, I am able to do so without getting stuck in the past. I can revisit experiences and cultivate meaning from them. Heal from them. Forgive and be forgiven by them. Be inspired and challenged by them.

Many cultures, traditions, and faiths have teachings on the spiritual wisdom and significance of waterfalls. Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, spoke of waterfalls as the continuous evolution of humanity, believing each drop of water is renewed every moment.

Like waterfalls, we too are continuously evolving and being renewed. We are not born to stay stagnant. We are not destined to remain unchanged. Transformation, though, requires action and commitment. Restoration doesn’t happen by accident. For me it required looking back and remembering. I have had to revisit those old pains in order to mend the fractures. I have had to review past trauma so as to not repeat it. Who I am now cannot be separated from who and where I was then. Tomorrow, while a new beginning, is influenced by today.

Leonardo Da Vinci wrote, “In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

The water touching my being grounds me in the moment. Anchors me as I remember how I arrived. Fills me with courage to venture ahead.

Remembering my birth no longer brings me to a state of despair.

Remembering my baptism and the church that rejected me, is not a source of gratitude, but a reminder of the ways institutions prioritize self-preservation over people and liberation.

Looking back to family and religious systems that insist those they’ve harmed not look back, I remember it’s easy to label the past as “water under the bridge” when you are not the one who almost drowned there.

Looking back I am promising to live a different way.

Looking back I am touching water. Allowing water to touch me.

Ocqueoc Falls.

In the northeast section of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula you will find Ocqueoc Falls. Ocqueoc is the English translation of waw-waugh-waugh-que-noc, the name given to the river by its first inhabitants—the Ojibwe people, part of the Anishinaabe Nation—meaning “sacred.”

It wasn’t on my itinerary to visit these falls. But as I was walking along the trails at Tahquamenon, I remembered a second set of falls in the state that I visited as a child. After more walking I remembered their name. With the help of my phone, learned they weren’t that far off the route home. Something drew me there.

I parked the car and headed right to the river. I knew I had been there before. That I had played and splashed around in the water around the falls. Looking back, I could not recall many details. But I remembered the sound of my own laughter and innocence. There wasn’t much of that when I was young. This remembering was a rare and precious gift, carving out a tender spot in my heart, the way the river carves channels in the limestone bedrock creating this sacred space.

I took my socks and shoes off and rolled up my pant legs. The soft warm sand took the edge off the cool river. The water touching my flesh felt like joy. Like love. Like refreshing. Like life. Like remembering. Like looking back. Like renewing my spirit to continue looking forward and dreaming of what is next. And writing all about it.

Look and please do touch the water!

With Wonder,
Rebecca & 10CAMELS

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Invitation to Reflect

• What lessons have you been taught about looking back and remembering?

• When is the last time you touched water?

• Is there a time water reached out to touch you?

Friday Field Trips are an extra serving of words and water for paid subscribers to Wednesdays at the Well. Paid subscriptions, starting at just $5/month, enable and empower me (Rebecca) to continue turning words into water and to expand the work of 10CAMELS.

Our September Friday Field Trip is this week. I’ll be sharing one of the new poems I wrote while wandering around waterfalls for my birthday. There’s still time to save your seat. Hope to see you there!

You can also support Rebecca & 10CAMELS by sharing Wednesdays at the Well with a friend and/or simply by leaving a ♥️ to let us know you’ve dropped by.