Wed to Water

Water.

Its molecules bind and bubble, strongly pulling one another into droplets, rivers, oceans, and human bodies. We’re made primarily of water, and our aqueous aspects yearn to join the flow, to dissolve and just float.

They say the human body can vary in hydration from 50-75%. I propose that the more watery a person is, the more they’re drawn to that element. Like me. I all but slosh and burble when I walk; my swollen cells gravitate toward any available water body.

I blame my childhood. I grew up in a humid coastal town, and when I was about eight, we moved to an island – oceanfront at my mom’s, second row at dad’s. So much water, so close, it changed my chemical composition forever.

When I went to a college, it was by the Tar River, and during my time there, I inched progressively closer to its banks, ending six hundred feet away, even though “down by the river” wasn’t a good thing in that town.

Upon graduation, I enrolled at UNCW for grad school and lived in Carolina Beach. I taught high school in a town named for its lakes, then bought my first house on Oak Island. When my husband and I married, we moved back home, buying our current island abode.

And for our yearly family vacation, we travel to more water.

Last week, we loaded up the tent (big enough for 2 parents and 2 kids), canopy (in case it rains), camp chairs, cots, sleeping bags, propane stove, cooler …. the packing list is a page long. But I’ve done it enough times now that I know what to bring for five days without electricity, plumbing, stores, restaurants, or, of course, the Internet. I remembered everything except the can opener – we had to suffer through limited baked beans rations, but we survived.

I’ve been going to this campground for twelve years now, maybe more – Twin Rivers Campground on the New River, aka “Heaven on Earth.”

At least, it’s heaven if you like tent camping. If you bring an RV or require electricity, you’ll be stuck in a less desirable spot; it’s the primitive sites that are so wonderful. Tucked within mosquito-free woods and rhododendrons, between the rocky mountainside and rushing river, they’re every camper’s dream. Ours was on a slight hill, with a sandy beach at its base, from which we could access the New River.

The New River is the second oldest river in the world, and it’s not even peacock-proud about it (I’m looking at you, “Cradle of Civilization”). It flows North, an anomaly, coursing from its headwaters near Blowing Rock, NC, all the way to the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico. The kids like to imagine drifting from our campsite to New Orleans like modern-day Huck Finns, an adventure better in imagination than in practice. It’s not all smooth floating.

But where we camp, on the South Fork, the New River is as gentle as a toddler merry-go-round. It spools by our campsite, speaking soothingly on rounded stones, wide and shallow. This stretch is perfect for tubing, which is what we did this past week, floating downstream in open-bottomed inner tubes and letting the water take us where it will.

We swam in the river, washed in the river. We watched the river. We listened to its song.

And we drank the water.

Those ancient mountains overflow with cold mineral juice. The campground has spigots set into the mountanside, and upon arrival, we filled a half-dozen containers, refilling often. When we left, we loaded up once more. At the time of this writing, there are still 2 jugs of mountain water remaining. And no, you can’t have any.

Yesterday, on our first day home, we went to the beach. It was low tide, the ocean emerald-green with white fluffy breakers, not too rough, and considerably warmer than the New River. I couldn’t help but contrast the two water bodies and try to decide which was better. But it’s impossible – they’re both perfect.

Afterward, I took a long soaky bath, sinking down with a book in hand. I finished Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water, a 10/10 novel of over 700 pages set in early 1900s India, following the course of a family cursed with drowning. The book is interwoven with the characters’ relationship with water – their covenant of water.

But that’s not what the book is really about. It’s about love, beauty, and that which makes life worth living. It’s about letting go and going with the flow, living the question and accepting fate. If Verghese wants to write a book twice as long, I’ll gladly read it. His prose flows like water.

Right now, I don’t know what tomorrow brings. But I’m betting it will involve water, and floating downstream.

by Jessi Waugh