Posted: 11/10/04

High Water Mark

The clear line along the shore tells us how high the water has been. In addition to height, I like to think of the line as a measure of volume. At normal water levels, when you sit in a boat near shore you can align your eye with the mark. Then look around with a level glance, and imagine the volume of water that was here, that now has gone away.

The river extends 20 miles upstream to a dam, and 25 or so downstream to another. With each inch of additional height, the river expanded laterally, to fill bogs and lowlands. In this country of flat relief, that meant a huge increase in area. So your imagination brings to life a very different river-bigger, wider, deeper, faster.

The high water mark looks perfectly straight, but it is not. The river has a gradient; we know the gradual slope is there. The high water mark traces this gradient. We also know the earth is not flat. Even on a lake, the mark traces the curvature of the earth.

Year after year, the position of the water relative to the mark reminds us that the river is never the same-nor are we. The lines that mark our passage through life may appear straight, but if you look closely, they probably are not. Just as the river has had times of high and low energy, so have we. People do not typically live out extended highs or lows. Like the river, we put in most of our years somewhere in the middle.

With us, as with rivers, the high mark is not the definitive description. It does not necessarily mark the best of times-for a river, high levels coincide with flooding and destruction. The line in the lichen is instead a reminder of a ghost river we can only imagine. It traces what has been, what could be, and what, some day, will be again.

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