take me to the water
On Wednesday I stayed home from work due to a migraine. The good news is that I get them much less often than before I hit menopause. Mine are completely hormonal or environmental, meaning I’ve never gotten one from red wine or cheddar or any of the other food triggers. I think this one was due to work. But I don’t want to talk about my headache.
Later in the day, after it had faded away, I braved watching a favourite film, A River Runs Through It. Such a fine film. Tom Skerritt, Brad Pitt, and that gorgeous Montana backdrop.
When it was over, I thought of how I love water and why I’m happiest when near it. When I was a young girl, my grandmothers used to take us to the Wagon Wheel Resort in Rockton, Illinois. We usually went in winter. I loved the cardinals outside our hotel room window and I especially loved the huge indoor pool. Such good memories.
When my mother remarried, my new father took us on vacations every summer. The North Woods was a favourite destination. Squirrel Lake near Minocqua, Wisconsin was so cool. The family car was left on the mainland and vacationers would take the pontoon ferry boat to the island where the cottages were. A wooded island, with plenty of wild blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries there for the picking, many paths to explore, a big beach (very rocky, but it was preparing me for later adventures), and potluck dinners every Tuesday when all the folks staying there would bring a dish to share with everyone else. So much food!
We stayed there a couple of years then started going to Squaw Lake near Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin where friends of my dad’s mother owned and rented out cottages. This lake had much better beaches. All sand and a very gradual slope into the deeper water. There was also wild berries across the road and lots of woods to explore and canasta in the evenings in the main cabin. My grandmother and I were the pair to beat. But I loved that lake, I’d often take a rowboat out by myself with my fishing pole just to get away from my brothers and a boy who was staying there who’d taken a shine to me. Yuck! I was around eleven and thought boys were just a bother. I had two younger brothers and they annoyed me no end.
When I was twelve, we ended our two weeks at Squaw Lake with a weekend of tent camping as an experiment. Except for me being dizzy the entire time, the experiment was a success. So much so that the next year, we camped for one month in Colorado and, in fact, we did this the next few years, somewhere in the mountain states.
The one campground, I believe in Eldorado Springs, had a mountain creek running the length of the campsite which was within a canyon. It had these handmade wooden bridges to cross to the other side. Very exciting with the ice cold water racing over the rocks beneath you. I built a dam across the creek, very wide in some spots, near our tent site, hauling rocks into place until I could no longer feel my toes in my PF Flyers gym shoes worn to protect my feet from the rocks. My parents would keep their beer cold in the water above my dam. This campground also had an Olympic size outdoor pool at the entrance to park. Bliss for a thirteen year old water baby. Between the mountain creek and the pool, Trish was a happy camper. No pun intended.
One year, in Montana, I rode a truck tire inner tube down the river. It moved so quickly! Visiting the hot springs in Yellowstone and following the beautiful Snake River, not to mention Old Faithful, I was in heaven. So many types of water. All beautiful.
I lived briefly in Boston when newly married, and I fell in love with the ocean. I thought the coast of Maine, especially Acadia NP, perfection. In New Orleans, I often walked along the Mississippi or Bayou St. John. Southern waters, semi-tropical, but still soothing and calming.
And my beloved Lake Michigan, just a short walk east, both before NOLA and now. My escape, my thinking place, my battery charger. Always gorgeous, always different, beautiful in winter, spring, summer, and fall. Sometimes stormy and moody, sometimes perfectly still, sometimes grey, sometimes teal, sometimes the bluest blue. It makes a bad mood disappear. It clears my thoughts. It provides my drinking water, my bathing water, and my tea and coffee. It washes my clothes and cleans up Madeleine’s little messes.
I am happiest when near water. I love walking along the Seine in Paris, sitting on the beach in Nice and just staring at the oh-so-blue Mediterranean, or hanging out in the Vieux-Port in Montréal, just to be near the water. The Oregon coast is beyond compare for beauty and diversity and that amazing Pacific. Perhaps water is an equaliser for my Aries temperament, which is a fire sign. Maybe it’s my Swedish ancestry, going back to those Vikings in their longships. Whatever it is, I know I get very crabby when water isn’t in sight for any length of time. Water is life and, for me, sanity. Or maybe my body is made of a slightly higher percentage than the average person. Whatever the reason for my love affair with water, it’s one that’s never left me wanting.
Later in the day, after it had faded away, I braved watching a favourite film, A River Runs Through It. Such a fine film. Tom Skerritt, Brad Pitt, and that gorgeous Montana backdrop.
When it was over, I thought of how I love water and why I’m happiest when near it. When I was a young girl, my grandmothers used to take us to the Wagon Wheel Resort in Rockton, Illinois. We usually went in winter. I loved the cardinals outside our hotel room window and I especially loved the huge indoor pool. Such good memories.
When my mother remarried, my new father took us on vacations every summer. The North Woods was a favourite destination. Squirrel Lake near Minocqua, Wisconsin was so cool. The family car was left on the mainland and vacationers would take the pontoon ferry boat to the island where the cottages were. A wooded island, with plenty of wild blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries there for the picking, many paths to explore, a big beach (very rocky, but it was preparing me for later adventures), and potluck dinners every Tuesday when all the folks staying there would bring a dish to share with everyone else. So much food!
We stayed there a couple of years then started going to Squaw Lake near Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin where friends of my dad’s mother owned and rented out cottages. This lake had much better beaches. All sand and a very gradual slope into the deeper water. There was also wild berries across the road and lots of woods to explore and canasta in the evenings in the main cabin. My grandmother and I were the pair to beat. But I loved that lake, I’d often take a rowboat out by myself with my fishing pole just to get away from my brothers and a boy who was staying there who’d taken a shine to me. Yuck! I was around eleven and thought boys were just a bother. I had two younger brothers and they annoyed me no end.
When I was twelve, we ended our two weeks at Squaw Lake with a weekend of tent camping as an experiment. Except for me being dizzy the entire time, the experiment was a success. So much so that the next year, we camped for one month in Colorado and, in fact, we did this the next few years, somewhere in the mountain states.
The one campground, I believe in Eldorado Springs, had a mountain creek running the length of the campsite which was within a canyon. It had these handmade wooden bridges to cross to the other side. Very exciting with the ice cold water racing over the rocks beneath you. I built a dam across the creek, very wide in some spots, near our tent site, hauling rocks into place until I could no longer feel my toes in my PF Flyers gym shoes worn to protect my feet from the rocks. My parents would keep their beer cold in the water above my dam. This campground also had an Olympic size outdoor pool at the entrance to park. Bliss for a thirteen year old water baby. Between the mountain creek and the pool, Trish was a happy camper. No pun intended.
One year, in Montana, I rode a truck tire inner tube down the river. It moved so quickly! Visiting the hot springs in Yellowstone and following the beautiful Snake River, not to mention Old Faithful, I was in heaven. So many types of water. All beautiful.
I lived briefly in Boston when newly married, and I fell in love with the ocean. I thought the coast of Maine, especially Acadia NP, perfection. In New Orleans, I often walked along the Mississippi or Bayou St. John. Southern waters, semi-tropical, but still soothing and calming.
And my beloved Lake Michigan, just a short walk east, both before NOLA and now. My escape, my thinking place, my battery charger. Always gorgeous, always different, beautiful in winter, spring, summer, and fall. Sometimes stormy and moody, sometimes perfectly still, sometimes grey, sometimes teal, sometimes the bluest blue. It makes a bad mood disappear. It clears my thoughts. It provides my drinking water, my bathing water, and my tea and coffee. It washes my clothes and cleans up Madeleine’s little messes.
I am happiest when near water. I love walking along the Seine in Paris, sitting on the beach in Nice and just staring at the oh-so-blue Mediterranean, or hanging out in the Vieux-Port in Montréal, just to be near the water. The Oregon coast is beyond compare for beauty and diversity and that amazing Pacific. Perhaps water is an equaliser for my Aries temperament, which is a fire sign. Maybe it’s my Swedish ancestry, going back to those Vikings in their longships. Whatever it is, I know I get very crabby when water isn’t in sight for any length of time. Water is life and, for me, sanity. Or maybe my body is made of a slightly higher percentage than the average person. Whatever the reason for my love affair with water, it’s one that’s never left me wanting.
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| “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” ― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories ©Trish Korous | 2012 |
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| Mom and I taken by my Grandma Myrle |
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