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In Search of Clarity

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In Search of Clarity

The thing about waterfalls is that they, like other forms of music, can transport you from one emotional state to quite another; pummeling your problems, washing your worries, and generally setting you straight.

In New Hampshire where I come from, when water falls it falls cold. When my wife and I decided to get married thirty something years back, and when we also took on the writing of our vows, and when I found myself absolutely stuck on what exactly I ought and ought not to be promising (and was beginning to suspect I might be embarking on a sizable mistake) it was to the mountains and the clarifying world of cold, rushing water that I went.

Angel Falls at the head of the Flume Gorge in the White Mountains was discovered in 1808 by someone’s 93 year-old grandmother who had wandered up into the mountains looking for a good fishing hole. When she returned home (fishless) and told her family what she’d found they refused to believe her. Which tells you something about them (or perhaps something about her). At any rate, while it is a curious story it cannot hold a candle to the western North Carolina one of the besotted Cherokee brave who flung himself from Blowing Rock only to be returned somewhat later by a providential updraft (though it seems a person who can believe this story is likely on a mission to believe).

All ancient stories aside, thirty-odd years ago I sat basking in the sun, perched on a rock wrapped round by spring snow at the sharp plummet of Angel Falls, and just waited. Waited till the words started to drip, then trickle, and finally flow, washing away all doubt and fear. Just like that it came together; the marriage happened without further hiccup or hesitation. So that’s that story; and of course everything’s been just peachy ever since.