Undergraduate Essay, Sans Water Sans Life was written by recent Global and Areas Studies and Spanish graduate Tyler Julian from Sheridan, WY.
Water
dictates life in the western United States. Transplanted Wyoming writer, Gretel
Ehrlich, spends a chapter of her memoir writing about water, arguing, “It
carries, weightlessly, the imponderable things in our lives: death and
creation. We can drown in it or else stay buoyant, quench our thirst, stay
alive.” It is in this sense that I, too, have come to understand water. Water
to Wyoming is a dangerous, carving element. Too much water and the red Wyoming
clay gives way, washing out roads and buildings; too little and the clay cracks
and the thin layer of dust is blown away in all directions. Still, a good, wet
spring rejuvenates our sagebrush plains, filling irrigation ditches and
swelling rivers with clear, clean water. In this way, Wyomingites recognize the
challenge and promise of water and view it with apprehension. The State
Constitution explicitly outlines water rights, many of us cannot swim,
old-timers never visit the coasts for fear of the oceans, and it is rare for
summers to pass by without news of drownings. It guides our lives as it
presents the front of either death or creation. In a yet unpublished poem of
mine, I wrote of a dried up creek in summertime:
Crossing
over Elkhorn Creek,
dry,
sans
water,
sans
life,
the
highway unfolds ahead,
open,
sans
traffic,
sans
emotion,
vacant.
And,
From day to day,
finding
solace,
takes
a different road;
this
highway,
welcoming
yesterday,
is
like Elkhorn Creek today,
inhospitable.
Possibly
reflecting unconsciously on Ehrlich’s words, I found her Wyoming solace,
restorative and life-giving, thinking of water as I drove along I-90. The
highways of Wyoming, surprisingly freeing in there openness, did not cut it for
me that day, and the hope that a full streambed offers seemed just out of grasp
as I grappled with a profound melancholy. Still, there is a hope in this poem,
in the empty creek. I realize as I reflect on the poem now, you cannot drown in
an empty creek, and the promise of the water to come sustains the hardy life of
our isolated state. We will eventually quench our thirst, God and nature
willing, when the rivers fill, and that is a wonderfully hopeful expectation.
Water has a certain level of control over us out here, but all we have within
our control is our attitude towards life. I am choosing one of hope as I wait
for the spring storms to fill the ditches of my life.
Graduate Essay Oasis Among the Clouds was written by Cody Perry who recently received his PhD from the College of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. Cody is from Otis Colorado.
My wife and I were sitting at home
on a warm, calm, sunny day, without any obligations, homework, or work to tend
to. It seemed like months or even years
since we could sit back and relax, but we would have regretted missing the
wonderful weather. We decided to go
hiking in the mountains to take advantage of our free time and the lovely day. The route I had scouted was recently damaged
by wildfire and we wanted to see how the flora and fauna were recovering from
the devastation. I was not exactly
honest with my wife about the terrain, length, and difficulty of the hike,
which would soon prove to be an obstacle to completing our trek. We packed some bottled water and granola bars
and set about traversing the wild and wonderful mountains. As we progressed we witnessed trees that had
been twisted and charred by the fire.
However, we also noticed the glorious, bright wildflowers and grasses
coming up as if nothing had happened.
These living organisms had received the rains and ample sunshine to show
the resilience of nature. As we hiked
further and further, the terrain became more steep and treacherous. My wife was not pleased with my subterfuge,
but I kept convincing her to forge ahead.
We periodically stopped to rest and quench our thirst with cold, crisp
water and satiate our appetites with the granola bars. After each of these respites, we renewed our
energy and resolve and pressed on toward the summit. At one point, my wife was ready to give up
and turn back, but some other hikers were coming down and told us that the
arduous task was well worth the payoff at the end of the journey. We hiked along dusty trails, climbed over
granite boulders, and tread lightly over loose gravel as we continued our
ascent. The water we had consumed
earlier reappeared as droplets of perspiration on my wife’s forehead and
torrents of sweat on what seemed like my entire body. As we climbed higher, the air became thinner
and our thirst grew. Our breaks became
more frequent so we could consume the life-giving water we had brought with
us.
As we neared the end of our
journey, the trail became harder to see and we began to wonder if we had taken
a wrong turn. However, as my wife became
more adamant about giving up and I began to wonder if she was right, we saw a
small wooden marker announcing we only had a quarter of a mile to go. As we looked forward and up, that last
stretch seemed to be the hardest part of our trip, but the prospect of reaching
the top kept us trudging along. We
resolved to continue and encouraged one another with the sign and remembered
the other hikers’ advice. Our muscles ached, our sweat poured, and the sun bared
down upon us, but we slowly made the final push to the top. As we crested the top of the final ascent, we
saw that the entire summit was a granite behemoth that had been rounded by gale
force winds. However, there was a small
stand of trees that was hiding a glorious oasis of fresh, clean water. The small pond filled with glasslike water
had carved out its own home in the center of the rock. As we sat down and looked down the opposite
precipice, we saw the burned trees interspersed with greens, yellows, blues,
reds, and purples of the plants reestablishing their dominance of the
landscape. We dipped our toes in the
frigid waters of the pond and slaked our thirst with the bottles of water we
had brought with us. While we realized
our return trip would tax our physical stamina, we relished in the beauty of
being at apex of our hike. As we peered
upon the horizon we saw a bevy of lakes, streams, and mountains that took our
breath away and inspired myriad photographs.
We enjoyed our time at the top and drank up the sights, sounds, and
serenity. As I sat there resting, I
remarked at the juxtaposition of damage and rebirth. While we were surrounded by charred trees and
sat atop unyielding fortresses of rock, we noticed the power of water. The granite had been smoothed and eroded by
the small pond as if a silk scarf had etched and molded a piece of steel. We
also noticed the clarity and beauty of the water as if it had been meant for
this place. The difficulty and
destruction of fire and rigidity of stone had yielded itself to the power of
water. I realized that this landscape
and experience echoed life in general.
We often fight hardship, setback, and obstacles to realize that we have
been shaped and molded by those same forces.
Just as the water softened the edges of the rock and gave life to the
dead, our perseverance and a kind word can shape our lives into beautiful,
powerful narratives of triumph. It is
not the fire that consumes us, but the aftermath of tragedy that shapes who we
are and makes us our beauty something to behold. While our journey had been difficult and
exhausting, we had emerged victorious.
The water served as a symbol of the quiet, yet powerful forces that make
our lives worth living and lend beauty and majesty to the difficult and rocky
landscape of our lives. Just as water
carves out granite, our perseverance and grace can defeat the challenges before
us and our trip helped us to realize the power, beauty, and resilience of
life. The water had carved out a home
for itself and I had found a place that transcended effort, sweat, and
obstacles to become an oasis among the clouds.
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