Written by and Photography by Rick Trottier
Since my earliest days, I have been drawn to all kinds of water features. Whether it was small ponds or large lakes, gentle streams or mighty rivers, or even the many aspects of the ocean washing the shores of wherever I visited, water has fascinated me and I have been deeply enamored of its beauty. Riding in my parents’ car, I would gaze at water as it passed by and be moved by its glittering splendor. Walking by some kind of water whether it be a reservoir or a large puddle, I would stop to gaze at its marvels and ponder the meanings of why it spoke to me in the way it did. Throughout my life, I have spent large amount of time enjoying water in some fashion, delighting in the way that it became woven with my existence.
The very young are not ones to have deeply discriminating tastes and as such often don’t know why it is that they find something appealing, nor can they tell you what the characteristics are that make them happy with an occasion, an object or any action. It is only after years of accumulating experience, reflecting on all that has passed through a person’s mind and soul and the process of sifting and measuring what has come into our lives and how we have interacted with it that true wisdom comes, and we know why things are as they are. And it is in the latter chapters of my life that I fully understand what type of water it is I like most and why it has meaning to me.
I am captivated of brooks and streams, small enough to wade into and walk all around their features, but large enough to have a diverse set of landscapes and aspects, so as to draw the eye and challenge the mind in the manner that only something of divine creation can do. So much of Creation is compelling in its own unique way and I find beauty in so much that surrounds me and my days, but I always come back to streams as that one feature of nature that I am most drawn to. And I now know why the tableau of a lovely, babbling brook or silvery stream has engaged all my senses and my spirit, for each facet of the face of a stream’s waters is a metaphor for some part of our lives.
Streams have a never-ending flow of energetic movement no matter what time of year it is. In times of plenty, when rain has fallen and when temperatures are moderate, there is a potent and undeniable force to the flow of water.
