Scotts Run

Over the past few weeks, in spite of the rain, I keep coming back to this spot. It exists among the grand suburban mansions of Great Falls, and is devoid of people on a good day. On days like this one, I hide my backpack and sandals in the surrounding duff and wade into the freshwater. I flatten my feet in a way so that the river-rock feels softer on my soles, and I spend ample time observing the minnows and water bugs.

I look out for eels, as well. They slither and slip through algae-covered cracks in the rocks. Sometimes they lay under the rocks and just rest for a long time, and with good reason -- the Anguilla rostrata that lives in this creek began their journey thousands of miles away in the Sargasso Sea. They were born there, and will eventually swim back to reproduce and die there. But in the meantime, they lie slick and still in the creek, and wait for students and college professors to feed them bits of wonder bread and chicken.

☀

I came here when it was cold, once, when the fiery leaves in the forest were embering to a more tepid brown, and when the stink of the sewage drains at the trail-head didn't vex oxygen. I remember feeling lost and sitting just as still, on the shoreline of the water, as I listened to a mourning dove coo gently into the autumn sky. And I wondered if it knew, in that moment, that it was the most important creature in the forest -- emitting the sweetest sighs of grace, to me.


Back in civilization I begin the questioning, what to do with life? What kind of life? In wilderness this ceases; the questions aren’t answered, they dissolve.

- Randy Morgenson