Saturday 9 December 2000

Pic of the day: The waterfall (or the main one) back at the farm where I grew up. This picture too was taken during my trip there this fall.

Singing waters

The picture above was taken at a time when the river was rather small. Usually in the fall there is rain, rain, rain on the west coast of Norway. (As you may have noticed, this year the rain came on the south coast instead.) When the river is swollen with water, the falls are a roaring thunder of destruction, throwing mud, sand and entire stones down in the deep far below. Over the centuries, it has carved out quite a pool down there. But after a few rainless weeks, the river is just a stream, and the waterfall is just an overgrown shower.

Actually, when I was a child, before we got a shower in the house, I would often go to the falls in summertime to bathe. Not right where this picture was taken, but just a little bit upstream, where there was a second level of waterfalls. (Yes, it's pretty mountaineous around there.) To get there, I had to walk up a path in the almost vertical mountainside, a path made by and for goats. Not for people with dizzy spells. That was not a problem for me - I sometimes climbed where goats feared to tread. It was only after I grew up that I became generally afraid of heights. But that's another story.

After a steep ascent, I came to a plateau, shelf or ledge that was covered with forest, old stately trees. For this reason it was called the Oak Ledge, though there were certainly other trees. A small trickle stream might run along it if it wasn't too dry. The river came tumbling down from a larger plateu further up, gathered in a pool, ran across the ledge and jumped out in the final falls that gave the farm its name.

It was usually at the end of a sunny day I would go for a bath under the oak ledge falls. Even in the height of summer, the high mountains to the west would make shadows fall early, so I better get there before that. As the green leaves of the last trees parted before me I would see the standing rainbow of the falls, where the sunshine was refracted in the waterdust. A small, local rainbow; but like all rainbows, it eventually got away before I could reach it. Yet as I arrived, it would stand like a portal of color over the really big tub and the really big shower that was freely provided for me.

(This was also where I accidentally discovered that you can only see the rainbow when you face your own shadow. But that's yet another story. I was older then.)

On a hot summers day, after climbing and running, there is nothing like fresh mountain water rushing down all over you, not quite hard enough to hurt. It's like all your childish worries are dissolved in the water and run off, far away to the trackless sea beyond the horizon. Out of your world. And then, lying on the sun-heated gray stone slabs beside the river and feel the warmth seep back into the body. That's what such places are for. They were made for boys like me.

***

Some times I sort of miss living in a place where I understand nature and know what it is for, and where it is all mine. Where trees are for climbing (and not for being bitten by poisonous ticks, like here) and where rivers are for bathing and stones for heating and caves for hiding and small streams for damming and diverting and clay for shaping and short autumn grass for running through, chasing the wind and with all the future wide open before you.

Now I live in a synthetic world, where you buy all the pleasures you need and want. I still go and look at the beauty of nature, but it is no longer mine. And neither is the future. On a rare occasion I see a small child or two squatting by a small tricle stream running through the ferns and bushes, and I remember how big the world was. It's theirs now.

***

But on the bright side - and it's so bright I almost put on shades - I don't need to wait for summer to take a shower. Whenever I feel the itch for it, I can have water running all over me. It's not alive with the strange pulsing of mixed air and water that I remember, but it is just the temperature I want at any time. And I don't need to climb to get at it either.

I understand that most people sing in the shower, unless there is someone nearby which they don't want to disturb. I thought of it today, as I showered, and of course was singing. Then again, I am singing even when not showering. I am a horribly bad singer; another heritage from my mother, I'm afraid. I guess you can't have it all. I often wish that I could sing together with others. I can't do that, but I do sing alone, all the day and some of the night. According to my brother, I have even been found singing in my sleep. Heh. I guess that's a world record.

As I thought about this in my shower, I wondered why people sing there, even those who don't sing all the time. I thought perhaps it could be the rushing sound of the water that evoked the need to sing. A kind of kinship with another soundmaker. I know that I, as a young boy, was more than usual inspired to sing when I was standing by the waterfall. I would stand on the spot where this picture was taken, and sing along with the roar of the autumn waterfalls.

But the farm was not without reason named for the falls. Even inside the house you could hear the sound, if you listened. Not that I did. It was just part of the way things were. I spent my childhood with the sound of the water. Each season had its sound. Where I live now, I can hear cars and motorbikes in the distance, and they can roar too. But it's not the same as the singing waters.