Walking Through Water
Sebastian Cancino -
As mist falls outside my room on another gray day in McKinney, Texas, I'm reminded of days spent watching a similar rain dance in the bows of the cedar forest around my cabin in Northwest Washington. I spent one summer a couple years back working as in-town staff at an outdoor expeditions school in Skagit County. The job was fun most days, tedious and repetitive at its worst, and delightfully tiring of body and mind on the most fulfilling days. Time spent then with myself, with my community, and with water are what remain with me today.
From the slick steps at my front door, a trail wove through a towering stand of wind-swaying trees fringed on the southern edge by a tangle of Himalayan blackberries. This isolated patch of woodland, centered on the campus, cut off from its neighboring contiguous forest, was yet connected by water: water airborne, water subterranean, water channeled, water walking, and growing.
Then, 2020. After a winter and spring traversing Utah's high desert and a summer's end spent in the Eastern Sierra Nevada of California, COVID-19 forced my hand. Living in my rough-converted cargo van became unsustainable. Wildfires raged in the forests around my home range. Tensions rose as political divisions in my local community became inescapable. A once-in-a-century pandemic disrupted access to public lands and vital public services, making road life possible. My mental health hit an all-time low. Seeking refuge, I made my way east. And as I breached the ring of freeways encircling Dallas-Fort Worth, my desert-adapted body felt the suffocation of humidity and concrete. Suburbia is no medicine for a wandering soul, but the comfort of my parent's home brought me some measure of peace. Still, the need for movement and to be close to nature remained top of mind and, when unsatisfied, festered.
Before the pandemic, multiple hikes per week was my regular routine. Now, however, my access opportunities have been slashed in a state where public lands make up less than 5% of the area (compared to about 42% in California and 70% in Utah). Since resettling in North Texas, though, I've pledged to walk every day. There is no minimum or maximum length or duration, no minimum or maximum exertion. The trails are more often concrete or asphalt rather than gravel or dirt. Some are a casual stroll while messaging friends, while others are quick bursts of speed to release potential energy. Regardless, I walk almost every day, and that is the only expectation. I now rely on this habit to keep my mind relatively uncluttered and mitigate my 30-something aches and pains. (Please don't tell me I'm too young to ache. No one told us when we were teens that our bones and sinuses become barometers after 29 years and 364 days.) Confined by necessity within four walls, within city gates, within my mind at times, the local waters I encounter are a reminder of possibilities. The silent stream down the street flows unseen under concrete and erupts in song when rains fulfill its potential. The damp winter mornings that drench the live oaks in dew as they sing a song all their own when cardinals welcome the sun. The humidity that stifled me after a year in the desert breathes a familiar life and vitality.
I'm reminded that water lives in the soil and in the rock beneath. That water travels within us and in our non-human cohabitants. That water walks on air and blankets the world. That water is a path itself. That water flowing free reminds us of that which we all desire and that which is our right.
Rivers and streams are seldom part of people's understanding of this land called "Texas". Folks often picture endless plains or dusty desolation. But waterways have provided life for ages of animals, plants, and humans in this place. History was and is shaped by rivers. The Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo del Norte, or mets'ichi chena, remains a vital source of life for a large swath of the United States and Mexico and several indigenous nations. Texas's own Colorado River (not the river that continues to carve the Grand Canyon) flows through the state capital of Austin, and its damming created Lady Bird Lake, Lake Travis, and the chain of Highland Lakes in the Texas Hill Country. The state's northern border is created by the stained Red River, the Sabine's eastern border. 21 river basins connect with our oceans on the Texas coast, creating estuary habitats, restoring our beaches and barrier islands, and providing recreation and erosion protection. The list goes on through branching forks, creeks, bayous, upper and lower sections, new diversions, and old reservoirs. Each of these rivers holds stories and truths. When it comes to contemporary health and wellness, greenspaces get a ton of attention, and rightfully so. But the positive effects of "blue spaces" have become more evident in recent years. A study from Canadian researchers found relationships between higher amounts of "blue space" in natural and built environments and higher perceived restorativeness. In contrast, a second study of coastal residents in England showed increased reported health versus their inland counterparts. It's no coincidence that we imagine pristine beaches and free-flowing rivers when we envision getaways from our daily lives. The benefits are real.
If 2020 taught us anything, though, it's that it can't all be good news. As climate change impacts become more evident and extreme weather events increase in frequency, we know marginalized communities and their water will suffer more and suffer first. With Native American households 19 times more likely to lack indoor plumbing versus white households and Black and Latinx households being twice as likely in the same comparison, it's apparent that the impacts of climate change on access to water in its myriad forms goes beyond recreational restorativeness and is at the very foundation of essential quality of life for many Americans and global communities.
Humidity
Surrounded by water
wading through dripping forests.
Every exposed inch:
moss or fern, petal or vine.
Humidity, hastened breath
clouding my insufficient lenses.
Streams and trickles over
rock and seams in song.
Ocean flows
clearing paths to intermittent islands.
Marshes of the Washington Coast
Trinity River in Denton County, Texas
When I look to our prominent local river in Dallas-Fort Worth, the Trinity, though slow, dark, and lined with trash in some places, I am reminded that there are no "bad" rivers. There are only poor policy and development decisions that negatively affect rivers and their human and non-human beneficiaries. Now that scarcity has pushed water futures to debut on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange alongside gold and oil, the prospect of future shortages of our most basic life-giving resource requires we rethink our relationship with water. It is the forgetfulness of humans that has allowed our rivers to be concretized, polluted, commodified, and desiccated for our "advancement."
Remember your local streams when you vote. Remember your local streams when you give charitably of time or funds. Remember your local streams when your organization makes decisions. Remember your local streams when you recreate and seek healing in natural spaces. Remember your local streams: they will never forget our choices.
