Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington - U.S.A.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 - cool, with showers.

ON BEING RICH

A man I know spent all day last Saturday outside in the sun doing the hard sweaty work of taking care of long-neglected tasks: Cleaning out a shed, triaging flower boxes, raking out the underbrush from hedges, thinning a bamboo grove, and hauling stuff from the yard and garage to the dump.
He went at his tasks with a determined will to get it all done.

Around 7 o’clock he realized he had not even stopped to eat.
Distress signals appeared.
Headache, dry skin, cotton mouth, a touch of dizziness.
And a powerful thirst.
The early warning signs of heatstroke and dehydration.
Not something to be expected in Seattle on a fine summer day.

The last time he felt this way he had been carrying a heavy backpack up a long steep trail out of the Colorado River bottom, into the hot, dry back country of Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah.
He had failed to fill all his water bottles at the river.
About half way up the trail he had drank all the water he had.
Expecting to find a spring or a pothole at the top, he trudged on.
And was too faint to stand up or walk on as he reached the top.
Heatstroke. He could die.
Luckily, three hikers who were headed down the canyon offered him a full canteen of water and he drank it . . . slowly.
If asked what was the best drink he ever had, he would have said that one.

Water.

Remembering the symptoms, he went inside his house to the kitchen sink, filled a big blue glass with cold water, and drank it . . . slowly, while covering his head with a wet towel.
Then he drank another glass.
And another.
Then he went back outside to water the flowers and wash off the porch.
All the while thinking he could have all of this delicious liquid he wanted.
It was cold, clear, clean, and free of filth and bugs and disease.
This water had started out as snow or rain in the high Cascade Mountains.
It had been passed down through creeks and streams into Seattle’s Cedar River watershed, filtered through glacial sand and gravel into a reservoir, passed into the city’s water system, treated with chlorine to kill germs and bacteria, with fluoride added to protect his teeth, pumped up to a huge tank four blocks away, and made instantly available when he turned the tap.

The cost of the water was less than a penny a glass.
He drank from the hose, as he had in childhood.
Delicious.
He splashed his face and head.
Sweet.

Water.

Then he went inside to the bathroom, stripped off his clothes, stepped into the shower, turned a handle, and an instant flood of warm water washed over him as he lathered up and cleaned away the sweat and dirt.
No solvent like hot, steamy water.
Even after he was washed clean, he stood there in the luxury of the shower, easing his tiredness, feeling his body revive and his spirits lift.

Water.

As he dried off, he realized this liquid had restored him to life again.
And his was a rare privilege in a world where gazillions of people did not have what he had.

“I am a rich man,” he said to himself, as he drank another glass of water.

And then he dressed, and drove to the nearby market, where he could have anything he wanted to eat twenty four hours a day, every day of the year.

After he ate his dinner, he undressed, went to bed between clean white sheets, in a warm, dry place - holding hands with a woman he dearly loved and who dearly loved him.
He slept the deep sleep of the tired-but-contented.
He was still there in the morning when he awoke.
Alive.
And still rich.

I am that man.

Arising, I went downstairs and filled the kettle with water for coffee.
As I waited I thought about what I had experienced in the last 24 hours.
How essential water is - and how easily I can have it when and how I want.

I’ve written this in third person because it’s useful sometimes to stand outside yourself and observe what you do and what you think and need.
To compare notes with your past self and past circumstances.
To recall that life is always a near-death experience.
To consider your life in comparison with the rest of the world’s peoples.
And to recognize that it is the most ordinary things that make you rich.
Like water.