The Music of the Waterfall

Buried in photos left to me by my father, relinquished to him by my mother at her death, bequeathed to her by my grandfather, and with few annotations whatever, are photos of him and his first bride, sometime after 1911 I believe, on their honeymoon to celebrate their marriage in that year. As hundreds of thousands of young couples then and now, they traveled the flat upstate of New York to see Niagara Falls. There are photos of him and his wife, another young couple, and my great grandmother, ... What was she doing there? A different era perhaps, or perhaps she had never traveled from Schenectady to see that wonder when it was her turn. No one needs a chaperon on their honeymoon, least of all a mother in law.

But that is not the purpose of this essay. The focus for now is upon the waterfall itself, and the realizations that came to me when I saw the photos from that trip almost 100 years ago.

Twenty years ago, in my backyard, ... my wife and daughters pointed to a patch of ground beside our deck and in full view of the family room windows, for me to create a water garden, a Koi Pond. My father was an engineer, and my mother a pianist, ... and the essence of the concept of the pond I hoped to create was a wonderful and durable garden for fish and plants, Summer and Winter, ... and a waterfall to play music for us and our children, and theirs someday.

The dig was daunting, with gneiss boulders, some 50 or 60 pounds, ... and in the end I lined a "quarry" of orange stone with a rubber sheet to retain the water for the life it would contain. It was plumbed, of course, ... a pump, and a succession of replacements, drawing water through a filter to sift leaves and twigs, and breakdown waste from fish and plants, ... and pump freshened water up a hill of about three feet, to a stone lined water course, over stones and slate plates, ... to splash into the pond once again. Anticlimactic, ... but hopefully enjoyable to the ear.

There was no sound, ... not even the splash you might hear when you draw a tub of water for a bath! I was destroyed, for more than any other feature of this pond, I wanted to hear the sound of cascading water, ... and could not fathom why I did not.

When it came to me in my sleep, I realized something I would understand confirmed in the photos years later, ... there was no sound, for there was nowhere for the sound to resonate.

Waterfalls are no different than a guitar, or a jaw's harp, or a mandolin. The sound occurs in a limited space, a vibrating string or spring, ... a splash of water against a stone. It is the space behind the vibration that causes the sound to resonate and refocus the sound for our enjoyment. Without the box we know as a guitar or mandolin, ... the sound would dissipate in space and be lost. Without a chamber behind the splash of water, the sound absorbs into the ground, and air, in all directions without any amplification.

And so, beneath and behind the last level of the water that cascaded down the stones in the waterfall, ... I created a box, a space, ... in which the sound of the splashing water could collect, and focus toward the porch, the deck and the windows. A "guitar" made of stone and strung with strands of splashing water. Only then did the waterfall sing to our family, at last. And then, ... the frogs came to sit in that box,.. to sing to us and taunt our dogs, ... and the Koi would slither up into that space on a skid of water, enjoying the splash and air and water together. Important to let the water meet the water, so the life can enjoy it too, ... I later realized. Suddenly life focused at the waterfall, which runs even in the dead of winter to aerate the pond, and keep the fish healthy. The failure of water flowing in the waterfall is a calamity that calls me in short order to repair.

Years later, I realized that Niagara, as many falls do, has carved out its own "sound box" with the rushing wash of water, and the erosion behind the stones at the base of the falls. The incredible rush of sound is the natural consequence of the "mandolin" shaped cave the falls themselves have carved behind the place the rushing waters splashed, ... carved over millenia.

I hope to build more waterfalls in my life, ... and tune them to play beautiful music from the water that traverses their steps. More than that, ... I hope to share the appreciation for that sort of understanding and the musical accompaniment they provide, ... as part of being Human, and understanding the gifts that are all around us.

Perhaps it is our best purpose not to splash and dash through life, but to reflect those things around us as they occur. Others may be the perfect object of that for us, ... their sounds amplified by our facing them as they live their lives. And in that reflection, we become a place where life is attracted to shimmer and tinkle in glimmering joy. Simply reflecting the joy around us.