River rock

It’s March and in the Rockies, this means that spring will be coming soon. Birds speak of it, their songs beginning to sound hopeful, as their bodies make subtle changes in preparation for another cycle of breeding, and rearing chicks to replace them in the web of life. After several years of droughts of varying intensity, the snowpack this year is above normal across the state, something that has not happened for quite some time. And when the snowpack begins to melt, the runoff will begin. Streams that are only trickles, or even dry washes part of the year will become torrents, relative to the size of the channel. The water’s power, a function of both volume and steepness of the channel, can undercut and dislodge boulders, carrying down downstream until they find a new resting place. And there they will wait, trembling, perhaps rocking slightly or even violently on occasion, until another runoff of even greater power dislodges them and they continue downstream.

Whether the process involves one stop or many, the rocking, trembling and even rolling has the same effect: it serves to knock away the loose (or loosened) material, shaping the piece as a flint-knapper or diamond cutter might, clearing away the detritus, leaving only the core that although perhaps perfect for no other environment, is nevertheless perfect for existence in a riverbed. Might take a decade, might take millennia, but as long as snow falls and melts, as long as there are rocks in the channel, there will be river rock. River rock is smooth, rounded, generally a perfect ovoid shape, scoured by as much time as required to smooth it, flip it like a pancake, and smooth it some more. Grains of sand abrade it as they pass in their own journey downstream, all part of the process we in our transitory existence call “geologic time,” a brief nod to something so unimaginably vast that most people prefer not to think about it, for therein lies the certainty of an existence far longer than we can aspire to, something we cannot share, control or for the most part even comprehend. Our lives span some portion of a century, rarely more, often less.

The process of smoothing river rock applies to people, in a way: some come crashing past or into us, or we them, and little notice might be taken, aside from the by no means guaranteed “excuse me,” or “so sorry” before our separate existences continue separately. Other times, whether briefly or a long time, a rock will run into or land near us, and being of more or less equal size and mass, we remain together, scoured by the same flow of water and sand, gently rocking in rhythm as our impurities drift away, being shaped in similar ways, become better suited to our present, shared existence.

Whether granite or quartz, our internal composition may be vastly different, but we share enough density (strength, if you will) to not be washed away, to hold our ground and yet give in, being shaped by each other, and at the same time, shielding each other’s weaker side as we present our strong sides to the larger stream.

And as the softer, weaker soils and stones around us wash away, as summer comes and wanes and the flow slows to a trickle, we may find ourselves an island, strong enough to withstand the next year’s runoff, imposing enough that others wash against us and remain, adding their strength to ours, until the next torrent sweeps us all away.

Without the irritation of the grain of sand, an oyster could never make a pearl.