September 21, 2020

The Autumnal Equinox is not until tomorrow, but the weather in Washington, DC on Saturday was what I think of when I imagine a perfect early fall day - sun shining in a vividly blue sky, the air comfortable but cool enough for a sweater, a faint breeze hinting at chilly days and months ahead.

Like most people, I've been feeling the stress of the pandemic, increasingly destructive climate driven events, and a bewilderingly toxic political environment. Optimism is harder and harder to sustain, or even muster. What otherwise might have been minor annoyances become obsessive and poisonous. My mood was dark on Saturday afternoon before Ina and Nora suggested we should go for a walk in Rock Creek Park.

We drove down towards Peirce Mill, eventually found a place to park on a residential street, put on our face masks and walked. When we got to the old mill falls, I stopped and grumpily told Ina and Nora that I'd meet them at that spot in an hour. They continued to the trail up the creek while I eased myself over the high steel guardrail and settled myself on a pebble strewn slab next to the falls.

That constant sound of a dammed stream dropping across a straight stone and concrete wall in a ragged sheet. The hypnotic effect of trying to follow it with my eyes as it disintegrates into boiling stacks of foam that trail off as the water picks up speed and resolves into a fast moving current. And emptying my mind of everything except the soothing presence and movement of water. Walking for an hour would have been good for my muscles and joints, but my mind and spirit needed to be still, cleansed by that sunlight dappled falls. 

Peirce Mill falls on Rock Creek, Washington, DC