It has been a tumultuous year.
Peril for Utah and Great Salt Lakes. An illegal attempt to silence me and seize all my family's assets. A sick niece stuck in the hospital for Christmas. The stress of trying to get Taylor Swift tickets.
There has been a sense of scarcity. There has been a millennial drought. There has been the normal refusal to acknowledge that anything was wrong.
I've been feeling wrung out.
December has been different.
After holding back for twenty years, atmospheric rivers finally rushed over the orographic barricade. Storms came as they did when I was a boy. I put studded tires on my bike for the first time in four years. School was delayed.
The return of water to our catchment changed something in my heart. It felt alright to take an afternoon off. We spent a lot more time together as a family. I rode my bike across Utah Lake. Rolling on a brittle skin held up by 100,000 acres of still water. Inches from the 10 million fish biding their time.
My little brother Sam has a much better social life than me. He has slowly been initiating me into some of his traditions. He asked if I wanted to jump into the Provo River at "the rock" on New Year's Eve. Of course I did.
After skating across the frozen water, it felt amazing to be plunging into the flowing water. I got a brain freeze, but it didn't even feel cold. It just barely started to penetrate the numbness that has been so heavy this year. It reminded me of my smallness. The water is all connected through the channels and aquifers. All pushing towards Great Salt Lake. The same water.
We are ringing in the new year in the Provo River with snow falling all around. Not all the creatures are impressed. The trees don't care. But with the water, we will cycle through another year. Purified by vaporization. Transformed by adiabatic cooling. Reactivated by the fall. Seeping and rushing through the rheic and hyporheic to the endorheic. Thanks to the sun, all rivers flow back to the sky.
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow