River Gifts

As I knelt on the riverbank, rinsing the bowl in the icy, amber water, there flashed before me an image of other women who had performed this same ritual over the millennia of human existence. How simple an act to rinse a bowl. How little that matters truly changes. In that flash of insight, I connected with women past, present, and future. In a moment, all the hurly burly of present life was reduced to essentials.

I saw my friend tamping out the remaining coals of the campfire when I returned from the river, the last few wisps of fragrant smoke disappearing among the cypress and pine trees. Golden sunlight, the crisp, clean light of early morning, streamed through the leafless winter forest. One task remained in breaking camp--packing our belongings in the canoe for the trip home.

I am wistful that our trip along the Black River of South Carolina is winding toward its close. A last lazy pull of seven miles is all that separates us from the primordial and reconnects us to the twenty-first century. Scenery changes quickly on the river as we paddle from one topography to another. Not ten minutes into our excursion the close, solemn bluffs of the swamp transform to steep cliffs of exposed white marl layered against orange clay. Cypress trees by the water's edge and tall oaks and hickory trees along the upper cliffs yield a forest fragrance mixed with damp, brown leaves and green moss covering tree branches and rocks.

We paddle closer to examine the marl and see scallop shells and an ancient oyster bed preserved in the limestone. The river has eroded parts of the exposed marl, creating shelves that clearly indicate climatic conditions affecting the earth's layers. Once again, I sense the antiquity of our planet and my life seems a mere speck in its history.