| To this day I can't explain why I am still | | | | bank and could see that the flood waters had |
| alive. I should be dead. My mother and I | | | | eaten away the bank a bit, weakening its |
| were visiting my grandmother and uncle, | | | | stability. I had been warned to be careful |
| during my summer vacation. I was about 10 | | | | not to walk too close to the edge, since it |
| years old . They lived in a very rural area. | | | | could be unstable.What I recall next is a bit |
| The valley where they lived was quite | | | | like a series of snapshots or flashes. I |
| narrow, running north to south. It might | | | | sort of remember the bank below me suddenly |
| have taken 5 minutes to drive from one side | | | | breaking away. I sensed that falling |
| to the other and both sides of this valley, | | | | panicky feeling. There was a mad grab for |
| were heavily forested. The western mountain | | | | the creek bank. I recall flashes of trying |
| side, very green and wet and the eastern side | | | | to grab roots sticking out of the creek's |
| a bit drier.A creek snaked its way along the | | | | bank. All these flashes happening in a blink |
| length of the valley. It was fed by the | | | | of an eye. And then click. I was sleeping. |
| melting snow and ice from the nearby towering | | | | I was dreaming. That warm fuzzy sleep |
| mountains. In spring time the creek became a | | | | feeling you get, when you are in the most |
| raging torrent of water, several times its | | | | comfortable bed and are only half awake. I |
| summer time width. Very often it would flood | | | | was suddenly surrounded by a pastel light |
| the bottom of the valley, where the fertile | | | | green haze. No more awareness of any thing |
| farm land was located. Grandmother's farm | | | | else. Just floating, dreaming, and |
| was often flooded in spring time, if the | | | | comfortable, in my own little green |
| weather suddenly became hot. This would | | | | nirvana.The next thing I remember was my |
| cause rapid snow melt, feeding the creek, | | | | mother pulling me up the bank by the arm. I |
| making it turn into a huge monstrous torrent | | | | was all wet, cold and muddy. I have no real |
| of ever expanding water.By summer time the | | | | memory of what was going on in the real |
| creek settled down, to a fraction of its | | | | world, outside me, during my time in the |
| spring time size. There was a highway lane | | | | fishing pool.From what my mother told me, I |
| size, main current area, flanked by side | | | | understand that she couldn't get to me. She |
| pools fed by streamlets. These side pools | | | | didn't know how to swim herself. All she |
| had been dug by the spring flood waters. A | | | | could do was yell to me to kick or tread |
| lot of the river bank was undermined by the | | | | water. She also told me to raise my arm so |
| same water power, that had dredged the side | | | | she could pull me up the creek bank. I don't |
| pools.It was a hot summer day. My mother and | | | | recall any of that. It's all blank.I |
| I set out to go fishing at the creek. We | | | | remember taking a nice hot bath later, to |
| trekked across a field, then through some | | | | warm up. The water in the tub was just fine. |
| brush, to gain access to the creek. I was | | | | Any thing deeper is not for me.That event |
| carrying a fishing rod and a can of worms, to | | | | taught me a healthy respect for warnings |
| be used as fishing bait. There was a rough | | | | about river banks, which could cave in. I |
| trail at the edge of the creek, leading | | | | have since gone fishing in a boat, but never |
| towards where one of the fishing pools | | | | by a creek again. |
| sparkled. We walked near the edge of the | | | | |