Phish

Andreas interviewed me about my experiences in the Danube and what the river was like. Unfortunately, I cannot answer questions about what is beyond the riverfront because unless there are hills, I do not see anything but the backdrop. It is like a Hollywood movie set...or like driving through the country around Gadsden, Alabama. There is logging there, awful clearcutting, but the company follows the laws and leaves a fifteen foot road frontage of trees. People think it is kind of them but it is not! If they cut trees down right up to the road, people would see what a mess they are making of once beautiful land. The shame and ugliness would surely anger them. But, they do not see, and they do not leave their cars to look beyond the trees to the damage that is being done to the streams, creeks, rivers, wildlife habitats and a multitude of other environmental catastrophies that result from irresponsible land use. Nature is an abstraction to them...like an algebraic equation that cannot be shown with blocks or an abacus.
When I swim the river, I am like the person in the car in that I cannot see beyond the river front, but I am WAY DIFFERENT. When I swim, the river is no abstraction. It is concrete, a literal example of what is going on beyond the river front. In the water, I hear the pebbles tinkling along the bottom of the river, traveling fast or slow depending on the current and depth of the water. In dead, dammed water, they do not move. Usually this tinkling is the first thing that informs me the water is getting faster and rapids may be approaching. When we near a dam, I often know before the people in the kajaks because I can hear the whirring of the generators, a sound imperceivable to people above the water. In the water, I can hear a boat approaching and make a determination of its size and speed. Barges have a slow, deep pitch. In the water I can make determinations about the water through its smell. If companies and corporations are dumping, I know it first. If animal farms are not being responsible and allowing feces and urine to go into the river I can smell it in the water even when people in the boats cannot. The taste? Well, that can be scary. Sometimes it tastes sweet, that is not good. It suggests dangerous chemicals. Sometimes stuff sticks to my teeth and makes them feel fuzzy. It is not a healthy fuzz. Sometimes my gums and mouth hurt from the water...chemicals. I can judge the turbidity of the water every stroke I take. How soon can I see my hand as I complete my swim pull? The particles in the water are visible to me through my goggles, and in my swimsuit at the end of the day. I know when there is good flow from the temperature changes and when there is a nuclear or coal power plant from the HOT (usually too hot) water. I know the river through all of my senses: hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling and smelling.

If a river and it's watershed are not treated responsibly, the water does not lie. The general public may not notice it because those that choose money or power over responsible social-environmental stewardship do their best to keep it hidden.
That is unfortunate because our waterways are our circulatory system. They bond us together as a people, as a world. If they are not taken care of from the smallest stream, it eventually effects us all. This, the river tells me, and the river does not lie.