Enough Water

 

We have enough water, its just going to the wrong places.  It is going to irrigate pastures at 8000 feet, grow cotton in the high desert and rice in the low desert.  It is going to golf courses, playing fields and your front lawn.  It’s going to long showers, teeth brushing and shaving flows.  Why don’t we just grow cows in Texas, cotton in Alabama or rice in Vietnam.  Why don’t we golf off of mats, play ball on Astro turf or xeriscape our front lawns.  Why don’t we take short showers or turn the water off when we shave or brush our teeth.

Because we don’t want to.  We don’t have to.  Push has not come to shove.  The tap has not run dry.  We have not run out, our streams are still flowing, our wells have not run dry, our lakes have not dried up, completely.  Water is cheap, subsidized, we have not had to pay for what our water is worth.   Water flows towards money.  If you have money you have water. There is no need to limit population, immigration or growth, water use, waste or consumption.  Water keeps flowing.  

It is not quiet a commodity to be bought and sold and traded with a price and a worth but it is not quite a public resource for the common good and general welfare.   It is regulated by the state for beneficial use and economic development without real regard or priority for what it is used for.  Alfalfa, microchips, people - it is all the same.  It is a social system with capitalistic implications. 

I used to think that water would limit growth in Park City but we did too good a job of water regionalization in the City and the County.  I asked why St George needs a pipeline from Lake Powell; so they can grow to half a million people.  Why would you possibly want that and enable it to happen.   Why should everyone in the state pay for that new Lake Powell pipe when they have ground water and use more water than anyone.

The basic archaic premise remains the same for water; use it or loose it, to save it is anathema to the old system.  If you save it someone will use your share.  Conservation used to mean using it all up, our original goal, now conservation just allows for more development and growth.  If you leave water in the stream or ground, the next in line will take it.  Now more of it is going to cities and people.  Now it is waste it or taste it.

 The priority system; first in time, first in right is supposed to take care of distribution in times of scarcity.  When you run out of surface water, you stop farming.  When you run out of groundwater, you dig a deeper well.  Our basin aquifers, full of ancient, one time historical water, are dropping like stones and yet we keep pumping like there is no bottom or there is no tomorrow.  Out of sight out of mind.  Now it is first in time, first in line.

So what’s the big deal, what’s all the hub bub about.  Is it all a big media game pursued by the water owner and water developers, to give them higher prices or give them things to do?  Is this the kind of news that they sell to us, like weather and sports to keep us tuned in?  Or is there a real crisis of unlimited demand and shrinking supply, a crisis of conservation, a crisis of climate, a crisis of confidence.  

Reason to Pause

 

I take a  midmorning time-out daily, between my reading and writing session and my dynamic active session.  Before I go play.  It is a time to sit and think and compose my day without activity or chores or lists.  Nothing to read and nothing to write, no devices, I force myself to sit and plan and appreciate small things, wherever I am, like the flow of a stream thru a mountain meadow or a Bougainvillea bush near the ocean or a Saguaro Cactus tree framing the rim of the hat on Sombrero peak in the desert.  I am instantly and constantly drawn to dabble with some distraction, such as a skewed hammock, a damp wetsuit, or an imperfectly babbling desert fountain, but I resist the overpowering impulse to do something, anything, everything.

For five minutes I force myself to do nothing and my thoughts quickly coalesce into appreciation, improvement and resolve.  How swiftly my thoughts are stripped of practicality and purpose and are allowed to float where they wish.   It is difficult to resist my penchant to produce, to optimize or to improve things, and just let things be.  After five minutes I intuitively have my marching orders prioritized in an efficient order and have a focus for the day.  Magically.

This forced incubation period was effective when I was in the working world, the fast lane, the rat race.  I would go swimming a few days a week in a local pool where I would get my own lane, if not the entire pool to myself.  After a confusing morning with assignments and projects backing up and unsolvable problems daunting me, I welcomed to cool, calm silence of the water.  

After warming up with a long slow progression I would settle into my usual workout counting without numbers as the laps ticked away.  The problems of the morning were seldom overtly on my mind but were nestled in my subconscious churning effortlessly as I thought of more pleasant and irrelevant things; water, women or wine.  I swim breaststroke and kicking laps for variety and a rest.  My pace increased finally as I hit my stride and finished with fast sprints and intervals where I would speed up incrementally.  Mindlessly.

After a brief warm down I would rest out in the sun for 20 minutes in the summer, or go back to the office for lunch and a quick nap in the winter.  When I finally got back to work I would start with something easy and instantly gratifying before tackling the larger problems.  More-often-than-not I would have things magically prioritized and broken down to the core issues.  I would have ideas for solutions, if not the complete problem mastered.  All that was left was the details of the solution, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.  Voila. 

Many things work out that way, the harder you try the worse you do.  Like skiing powder or riding a bike, thinking of someone’s name or sinking a putt.  Ready, aim, relax.  Do what you can to prepare and then let your inner mind take over.  You cant think about riding a bike and it takes a million motions and muscles to ski powder or sink a putt, you just have to let it go.  We are  our own worst enemies at times when we fight our instincts and our biggest fans when we can just let the mystery be.

Nothing to do. Let the Day Come to You.

 

Another Monday with nothing to do. Up at sunrise 800.  Dog chores and coffee.  Read the fake news feed.  Two below zero with four inches of snow but I take my daily pause out on the deck chair in my thick bathrobe to feel the cold and let the day come to me, unfettered.  My guilty pleasure to set the tone, tempo, ground my thoughts and acclimate for winter.  No phone, no booze, no pets.   We make French toast for breakfast.  Shower shave and clean the bath.  Minor instant gratification, indoor fix-it chores, laundry, yoga with the howling down-dog and I work for a just a little bit. 

Morning Reading in the new winter sun, since the leaves are gone, in my favorite living room chair.  Einstein’s theory on Coriolis effects on river right meanders; magnified by the equivalent to the sine of your latitude.  Negative in the Southern Hemisphere where they favor left.  Of course.  His son Hans became a Civil Engineer and Geomorphologist. The Newtonian apple does not fall far from the tree, relatively.  Then I get sucked into a new JK Rowling mystery novel a young friend gave me.  Not bad but not my style.  

This time of year I switch to morning reading with Mountain Bike and Moto riding in the afternoon to allow it to warm up.  In the summer it is the opposite where we are out in the morning cool and hunker down after lunch to avoid the afternoon heat.  This winter timing takes some getting used to since it is counter to my natural Mediterranean biorhythm’s that want me to take a Siesta in the afternoon.  Its not bad but not my style

Leftover enchilada lunch and then minor motorcycle, hot tub, and outdoor sprinkler maintenance and off to Home Depot where I spend two hours mostly talking to some other irrelevant retired friends. Then some indoor Pickle ball and chatting up the Mexican workers swarming in the neighborhood, scrambling to finish in the cold. 

Home I catch up on work and correspondence, run the dog, start a fire, and take a nap with Tracey. PBS news and Jeopardy while we cook pizza dinner, finish Giuliani with Borat, and the great new Sorkin Chicago 7 film and a Pink Floyd documentary and it is time for bed.  Read and write more, scratch the dog’s belly and sleep. Mind, body, and soul.

The point is it is so nice to let the day come you in its own time, space, and tempo, have the time to think and enjoy the little things and the details.  No messages or voice mail, commute, Windows, rushing, worrying, priorities or people who do not get your jokes, where I have to be at noon, what to leave in or what to leave out.  It is a skill that is not for everyone, but I think you might like it.