“Take me to the river and drop me in the water.
Dip me in the river, drop me in the water.
Washing me down, washing me down.”
—Al Green
Even from Carmel Valley Village, it’s enough of a drive up windy roads to provide a car full of women the delightful sensation of getting away from whatever would dare attempt to hold us back. Each upward curve provided release for the three of us traveling from the familiar into the new and splendid — into nature and more nature. Painter and photographer Paola Berthoin knew the way, so she directed and reassured. Painter and printmaker Christine Watten held the position of co-pilot, drawing my attention outside whenever I could safely lift my eyes from the road to see a little beauty here and a lotta beauty there. We made a good team — a driver with two hands on the wheel, two passengers with a sense of direction and an eye for the immense, rolling landscape, still golden from summer, outside the car. The thing about taking a field trip with artists is that they see more than many others do. Our picnic lunch and towels were stowed in the trunk. Along with the trusty car and each other, we had all we needed.
Our destination? Cachagua Community Park, a 14-acre Carmel Valley park about a mile below the Los Padres Dam. Though the origin of word Cachagua is uncertain, its use, according to the park’s website, can be documented as far back as the 1850s. Likely the name comes from the Esselen Indians who had several known villages in the area and remain there to this day. And though the history is significant and reason enough to venture there, that wasn’t, on this particular day, what we were coming for. Though just the lovely sound and the feel of the word Cachagua would be nearly enough to make the trip, and it was the agua that called our names.
Not far from the parking area, playground and the old river-stone park building, the Carmel River opens into a large swimming hole. In summer, the shoreline and water are humming with activity and swimmers galore, but on the late October morning we arrived to find no one there. Since I was young, though a lousy swimmer, a body of water is to me an invitation. Where my inclination to jump out of my clothes and into the water comes from, I don’t know but it’s gotten me into some very beautiful places. On this day, at first, it was too chilly to get in, and my jumping days are, sadly, behind me. From the overreaching trees, dappled shadows covered the entire pool, flickering in the breeze. And though poet Gerard Manly Hopkins wrote, “Glory be to God for dappled things,” and though I was in awe of the shadows’ movement, I longed for the sun to makes its way.
While we waited for the chill air to warm a bit, we got to be three artists in the woods, three gray-haired women of a certain age. Paola grabbed her camera and took off like the intrepid, rock-bounding, wood-nymph she is. Christine pulled out her sketchpad and colored pencils and sat down on a boulder, appearing as at ease as if she were lazing on a couch but with her eyes wide and attentive to everything around her — each touch of breeze, falling leaf, all birdsong.
I reached for notebook and pen. And, no surprise, another line of poetry came to me. When you are out in the tree-lush dark woods with barely a human sound, time becomes poetic. I was glad for poet Lisel Mueller’s,
“The sound you hear is water; you will hear it forever.
The ground you walk on is rock. I have been here before.”
And though I hadn’t ever been there before, in a sense, I had, as memories of other days beside other wooded waterways tumbled back to me. Not that any one tree duplicates another; it’s that the being in a forest can only be compared to being in another, a sister location. And I pray (though I don’t pray much), that the sound of water is something we will all hear forever, however long that is. And the voices of birds, for that I pray too, and that day at the river we had birds in the trees aplenty, carrying on conversations I’m not privy to understanding but marvel at just the same or more so.
Next came the daily miracle of light, the un-dappling — sunlight moved across the pool — causing darkness to slip away, and with the light, of course, came warmth. And with the warmth came the call of water. As if on cue, the three of us felt it. Luckily, Paola lent me her water shoes to protect my tender feet. And there we were — three buoyant gals afloat, coursing through the oh, so cold water, kicking our legs, stroking our arms, and laughing. The pool trembled with our laughter. It was a baptism of sorts, as the season, despite the calendar, moved from summer into autumn. Then Christine lent me a towel which was another bit of goodness since I’d forgotten mine.
Whatever life has on offer, get yourself to a river, risk the cold, and plunge your body in. Your day will be transformed from whatever it was into a celebration. The sound you’ll hear will be water, hopefully birds, too, and maybe the echoes of laughter shared between three friends will yet linger in the air waiting for you and your laughter to join in.
