The Ways of Water

by Laura Parker Roerden As a child, we had a hand pump over an artesian well by a white, double-decker chicken barn. It was the only water for hundreds of birds growing on that land. The pump required several hard thrusts of the handle to raise the water like spirit, to the surface. Then each long, resistance laden pull of its arm brought up a triumph of water; a river spilling into a galvanized bucket spraying foam and mist in confusing and thrilling planes that felt like rafting on whitewater. Everything in the dim eastern light would turn silver and metallic, reflective and animated like balls of mercury jump around a bathroom floor when you drop a thermometer. The pump had long ago been painted dark green, but it had weathered with flecks of peeling paint gathered on the creaky boards capping the well below; the patterns held my imagination while I pumped the water, drawing in the cold air, with each long pull. “Learn the ways of water,” I was told one morning and I listened, plunging my hand into the icy bucket, as if the winter air was finally ready to explain itself to me, as if the every day need of water carried a promise I had not yet understood. Laura Parker Roerden is the founding director of Ocean Matters and the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility and New Designs for Youth Development. She serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans (W20) and Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women.