I Believed Water was Holy and Became a Guttersnipe Kid

I still believe water is Holy but I no longer drink from the gutter

“Jonathan, get your sister out of the gutter right now!”

I was fully engrossed playing a hopscotch game of one on the sidewalk. Slinging the longest chain I had ever used and hoping all of it landed in the designated square.

Until I heard the clarion call issuing forth. The scorching desert heat guaranteed sprinklers spritzing and rain birding in every yard and the gutter began gushing with runoff.

Game forgotten, I stared transfixed by the liquid bounty and crouched down on my knees to begin ablutions. Gum and candy wrappers floated by amidst ciggie butts men had squished underfoot at the bus stop. I batted them away, not the least deterred and began my usual chant.

“Oh Holy water, bless your daughter.” Cupping small palms, I brought a handful of water to my lips after offering it to the sun and gulped it down heartily.

Now in full fervor, I cupped again and poured the contents over my head in self baptism. Another drink had fully transported me into water world when my brother came running.

“Mom said if you don’t get out of the gutter she’s going to whip your butt! She wants to talk to you. You have to go inside.”

“Why? I’m not doing anything wrong. I was just thirsty!”

“It’s dirty water. She said if you want a drink you have to go inside like everyone else or drink from the hose like I do. Go on or else I’ll get in trouble too!”

Oh crap, mom was watching us from the kitchen window and beckoned me with her finger. I ran inside lickety split to face her indignation.

“What in the world is wrong with you! Every time I look out the window I see you slurping from the gutter. Do you think you’re a dog for God’s sake? It’s like a scene from “Les Miserables.”

This was a momentary distraction. I looked around the room for God. I was interested in meeting him. “What’s lay mizerob?”

My oldest brother who thought children should be born at age 10 and abhorred anyone younger, sauntered into the kitchen.

“It’s a French book about poor people and guttersnipe children. You would be a star.”

A new word was an excellent diversion. “What’s a guttersnipe?”

Our baby brother started fidgeting on mom’s hip. “Go look it up. You won’t remember the meaning unless you find it yourself. And stay out of that gutter!”

I ran off to search for Merriam Webster and found guttersnipe whose definition thrilled me. I was five, but so on fire to read my sis nine years older had taught me to read at four. The skill unleashed new worlds. I was seriously addicted.

Guttersnipe: a homeless vagabond and especially an outcast boy or girl in the streets of a city

I walked back outside whispering guttersnipe over and over. This word led me straight back to the gutter but I savvied up and checked the scene out for spying, eagle eye, mom before indulging my passions.

A National Geographic magazine arrived and I swiped it from the mail pile as usual. It featured an article about the Ganges river in India and included photos of people drinking straight from the river due to its holy reputation.

I hotfooted it to mom. “Look at this! I was right! Water IS Holy! These people think so too!”

She took a few minutes to peruse the piece before replying. “This water is probably very polluted due to population density. The people living there have adapted to the bacteria but I bet they have parasites. A foreigner would most likely get sick, even if they believed the water was holy.”

I was crushed. I didn’t know mother could be an ignoramus too, another favorite word. I burst out defiantly. “That’s not true. I’m going to drink that water someday and prove you wrong.”

I did drink dirty water in India. Presented to me in a deceptively capped bottle in front of the Taj Mahal. I spent the next two days hovering over a pit toilet, thinking of mom.

My water infatuation increased with the years. I graduated to worship sessions in the shelter belt on the outer edge of town. Two rows of Russian Olive trees had been planted to ward off desert storms and a gurgling irrigation ditch ran between them in the sandy soil.

In third and fourth grade my best friend and I created a temple for priestesses out of the wet sand in a small pooled area.

The harsh sunlight softened as it filtered through fluttering olive branches. Hours passed as we sculpted the sand, adding to our structure and going through various initiations and rites of passage.

We steadily drank the irrigation water from the Yakima river as we played. A river heavily polluted by agricultural, chemical runoff.

This was before my mother read the book “Silent Spring” by environmental scientist Rachel Carson when I was in high school. She handed it off to me with a statement.

“Read this. It turns out we’ve all been drinking gutter water. Our callous government has been making illegal dumps of Hanford’s radioactive waste straight into the Columbia river and it’s been steadily flowing into our homes.”

My young water worshipper self was living between two of the most contaminated rivers in America.

I had a steady stream of water epiphanies hiking in wildernesses to sub alpine mountain lakes. I still remember my first cup of glacial water. One would’ve thought I won a liquid lottery, I was that thrilled.

It was icy cold with a turquoise cast and tasted like nectar of the Gods. I drank cup after cup, my capacity astonishing and alarming my boyfriend. I had found the Holy Grail.

I stripped off my sweaty clothes and splashed naked into the body numbing lake with glee. Move over Wim Hoff. I was onto your cold water therapy long ago.

This became my hiking mode. Drinking my fill of sweet, icy cold, pristine water followed by dips in freezing lakes. Glacial water became my high bar in water world.

As began my nomadic years of global trekking I became increasingly agitated about our disregard for clean water. I spent years in the third world and frequently came across sights which appalled me.

Trash and human waste littered waterways, sometimes piling up to the point it clogged the flow. Sitting in a shop in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1973 I was asked if I wanted a cup of tea.

The shop owner went to the running gutter and filled his kettle from it. The same gutter kids were peeing in a few shops away. Suddenly I had no thirst.

I drank the Amazon river for two months. There was no other option aside from rain water, not available on river boats. The river was light brown in color due to the rainy season. Water was poured into a large tank onboard in the morning, then left to ‘settle’ for several hours.

We passed people washing their clothes and bathing along the riverbank. I talked to one Captain at length about water safety. He assured me the flow was so strong there was no risk of drinking contaminated water.

I was not convinced. My traveling companion and I kept chopping our daily ration of fresh garlic, hoping our gut microbiome would survive the ordeal.

When I lived in the bush of Africa for two months, potable water became a very big deal. Our hut was right next to the Indian Ocean. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

We hiked with containers to a sweet water well a half hour away every evening for our next day’s supply. We conserved every drop of our fresh water as if our lives depended on it, because it did. This journey deeply increased my appreciation of clean water and I never took it for granted again.

Years later, flying into Palm Springs, California for a retreat at Joshua Tree, I exclaimed about the bare San Bernardino, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountain tops. It was still early March. A local sitting next to me said it was now a typical sight and 20 years ago all the mountain peaks were snow capped into early June.

Part of the water crisis in this area is related to the extraordinary number of golf courses for the retired crowd. The aquifers are drying up as sprinklers keep squirting away to keep the greens in ‘pristine’ condition.

I have nothing against golf, but how can we justify this exorbitant waste of water when California is a state in water peril? What’s wrong with driving your ball on a brown course? Big deal. The color of the grass doesn’t affect the game.

I live next to a rain forest which will not be a rain forest much longer. The mountains which support this micro climate are shedding their snow covered peaks too. This summer a friend hiked in the region and returned with sad tales of dried creeks, very low rivers and suffering trees.

We’re fortunate to have an abundant clean water supply on our land due to our high location on the island. This same island is experiencing the threat of water contamination from the salty water surrounding us at sea level.

We depend on our rainy season and so far my footsteps in the forest are producing powder puffs of dust when our meadows should be greening back by now.

Some of the worst backlash from our lack of water awareness are the islands of floating plastic in our oceans. We rarely even consider what happens to those flimsy plastic water bottles when we buy them. It’s a matter of convenience and that’s a good enough reason.

We could easily buy a reusable small thermos and leave home with water on hand. I recently read an article, one among many, where bottled water had been tested and results showed contamination from the collection pipes and source. Who says it’s clean because it’s in a bottle?

We can install a water filter at home and run our water through it for some kind of quality assurance. Put it in our own containers and carry on. This small act alone will save our oceans from a lot of plastic waste.

We are on the fringe of global water wars. It’s already happening locally in our state. Farmers unhappy with their water allowances under drought conditions are breaking into locks and altering pipe flows.

Clean water will become the gold in our future.

We can change our perception around water and it’s use. Turn back a ticking clock by feeling more gratitude toward the essential, life supporting compound of water. Establishing awareness and mindfulness about our dependence on clean water and realizing how our supplies are dwindling.

Small, individual efforts can make a big difference in the long run.

Do I still believe water is Holy? More than ever.

Two thirds of our body consists of water. Water makes up 99% of all molecules in our body. We are walking, talking, Holy Water Vessels.

Let’s treat our sacred and essential ingredient for life with more care and steward it’s health into the future. I’ll drink to that!