Listen to the creek and find the quiet in your head

We spend a lot of time tossing stones in Sligo Creek lately, my kids and I. We could do it for hours, and it is always me, the grown-up, who insists it is time to stop and head home. The kids never want to stop.

Photo: Julie Wiatt

My daughter can't really skip those rocks yet but my son gets lucky sometimes and he can make a rock skip a time or two before it plunks under. Practicing this skill is always a meditative exercise for me, like the best kind of prayer. I can feel my heart being warmed by the dappled sunlight and my mind slowing to the pace of the breezes that blow around us. We watch the creek and we forget to be parents and children. We are simply humans, who find ourselves drawn to the water. Just because. It seems like fun.

Most of the time lately we are joined by water striders when we are streamside. These funny insects, which my brother once heretically called Jesus bugs, seem to walk across the water, or at least skate across it.

Actually, I think neither Jesus nor the bug was insulted by the comparison; these creatures are elegant and impressive and always inspirational. Like tiny black x-marks they glide and glide, able to escape quickly, sometimes moving at more than 3 feet per second. They are excellent swimmers and never once have I managed to catch one in the Sligo or elsewhere. They feed upon small insects which fall into the water, and are harmless to humans. Birds like to catch and eat them, which makes them a welcome addition to the creek.

Research on these faceless little aquatic creatures just a few years ago also revealed they are some of the world's greatest water skiers. Although people once thought the striders used the momentum of the waves generated by their own legs to stay afloat it is now known that these bugs actually stand on the water with the aid of thousands of tiny hairs which grow along their legs. The hairs help to trap air, which keeps them steady.

My kids and I were down at the Creek watching one of these striders go by one day last week when my daughter noticed that it looked like someone had spilled glitter all over the ground. Closer inspection revealed that the sparkles were actually some of that shiny mica dust which can be found in soils all over our area. This mica was supposedly what inspired Francis Preston Blair to give Silver Spring its name in 1840.

Photo: Julie Wiatt

A moment of reverie by Northwest Branch.

My daughter was not impressed by this factoid. No, what she wanted was something bigger. Mommy, she said. I want to see some fish.

Yes, I told her. I'd like to see some fish here, too. But the water simply isn't clean or cold enough for large fish to make a regular appearance. Maybe someday, I say. If we do a good job and try to help the creek, if we tell other people to stop hurting the creek. Maybe someday we'll see lots of fish. I try to rally my optimism in order to sound enthusiastic and sincere.

One thing that gives me hope is that there are actually some fish living in the Creek now, but they are seldom seen. Mostly they are tiny little things, which have somehow adapted to the troubles of associated with urban waters. I have seen research which indicates that in some areas there are as many as 100 individual black-nosed dace living in some of the creek's small shallows during the summer.

This amazes me, partly because I have never seen even one of these fish, and I am out there quite often. But then again, these fish aren't easy to spot since they are only about 1 inch long and almost transparent. So I remain unable to see the dace or anything else with fins and gills in the water.

Honestly, I don't go looking very closely. I love the Sligo, but I've become too aware of its problems to allow myself or my children to do more than toss rocks at the creek, and even handling the rocks makes me a bit uneasy. Sadly, there's a lot of e. coli in those waters, and not much oxygen. There are sewage leaks, and dumping along the creek continues to be an issue. So as soon as we leave the side of the water I am all over everyone with hand wipes. We never eat snacks near the Creek's water, either. Too risky.

Still, one must balance caution with casualness. No need to get everyone thinking nature is dirty or scary, no need to turn into Lysol Monster Mommy. So, I act like its no big deal-- just need to clean up a bit and then I try to refocus everyone on something positive. Look at the mallards , I sometimes say. Aren't they beautiful? They're trying to follow us home... . Or, Hey, wonder what kind of animal made those footprints over there....Wow, look at that cool spider web.... I love that tree with the big hole. Maybe an owl lives there....

Its hard to inspire love for a place, and yet dole out appropriate scorn for its troubles. It is a careful balance, a monumental act of role-modeling when your own heart is simultaneously breaking at the sad state of the environment and somersaulting at the joy of your child's tiny hands gathering stones.

Sometimes I think it is enough to say: Love this place, know this spot, enjoy it with me today. Try to protect it for tomorrow. It is not the Grand Canyon, or the Great Barrier Reef, I know. But this is our home and humble and polluted though it may be, there is still beauty here to be found, and some of that beauty is in your own heart.

So toss a rock and forget your troubles. Listen to the creek and find the quiet in your head. Share some time with me in the sunshine. Join hands with me to make it better in the future. And understand the importance of making time for doing nothing together, because that is when everything real takes place.

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