Article 4 - TRAVEL IN LOCAL SPACES, "BUTTERMILK FALLS" October 2006 edition of First Church of The Streets

I wasn't too sure how my trip to Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca was going to turn out. It was one of those days where the pillow acted as a siren tempting me to the delights of slumber. Even the prospect of going to a new place to do my favorite two things - travel and hiking - wasn't enough to wake me up. Besides, it was spring recess. The place was probably teeming with people taking a week off with their family. But in the end, I made my mind up to go, and that was that. I'd been reading these books that dictated you could have peace and energy if you put your mind to it, so I decided to try it out. Besides, staying at home wouldn't make me more energetic. May as well make the most of the moment and live it up, see something new.

A two hour drive and much coffee later, I was there at the park with my dog and husband. At first, the whole thing seemed to be a disappointment. There was a parking lot, and a creek with a day use area, where I saw some guy pushing a kid on a swing and some people dressed in business suits eating lunch. It was pretty in an embryonic early spring way, and it was nice that these people looked like they were having fun. But I was here for the waterfall that I kept hearing about from waterfall enthusiasts and nature photographers alike, and it look like it took up and ran away and left this lousy playground for me like a bad tourist T-shirt. On top of it all, I lost track of my photographer/spouse, and so for the first twenty minutes I walked around looking for both my lost partner and the missing waterfall, wondering why I drove two hours to space out in a parking lot with a dog who didn't want to be on a leash. Oh well, I thought. Maybe it was one of those inner peace things, where I was supposed to find satisfaction within and all that. Just about at that moment, I saw my stray husband on a trail far below the day trippers, and once I retrieved him, we both found a map that directed us to the waterfall. Maybe this positive thinking had some merit after all.

To access the waterfall, we had to cross the street and choose between the Rim Trail and the Gorge Trail. We saw two hikers who were behind us head to the Gorge, and for the sake of privacy and so the dog wouldn't get too excited at the prospect of other two-legged animals (re: people), we headed out to the Rim Trail. Which at first, seemed like a mistake. All we saw were trees everywhere, and the occasional glimpse of some lucky hiker climbing stairs amidst the waterfalls on the Gorge Trail below us. It was like being in a nosebleed seat for the concert of the year. Time, I suppose, to put that inner peace stuff to work. Instead of being disappointed in missing out on the falls, as I was seeing it, I enjoyed the trees around me. I decided to breathe in the air around me and see the nature surrounding me as my friends that were especially chosen to accompany me at this moment. It sounds far out, but it worked. We were the only people on the Rim Trail on the moment, and changing to this mindset made it feel like I had created my own universe of solitude. Very peaceful indeed. Hey, if I didn't see the waterfall up close, no problem. At least I had the air and the trees and all that went along with it. Sort of like a living example of the road less taken, or something like that.

While in the middle of waxing esoteric, the trail began to turn, and then pitched into a descent. It led directly to the waterfall that I was so afraid we'd bypassed by taking the Rim Trail. The waterfall cascaded downward, providing a backdrop for the myriad of human activity around us. There was a little promenade that would be used in the summer for swimming in the pool that was fed by the falls above. People sat on the steps above this, some for awhile, some for only a moment. As part of the waterfall scenery, there was a man with a camera combing the falls, climbing its lower strata with the awkward concentration of one whose attention has prioritized safety lower than art. There was a woman busily scribbling in a notebook with such concentration it looked as though the scene could be transformed into a noisy factory and she wouldn't know the difference, and wouldn't flinch a bit. The scene was too busy to be one where you were lost in nature. The fact that Ithaca College and Cornell University were nearby wouldn't be something easily forgotten here.

Despite all the human activity, the falls had enough of a magnetic force to make me want to sit in its presence and not leave. Buses and other cars pulled into the parking lot behind us, people came and went but the falls were still there, watching it all. However, the sun was getting hot, and it looked like there was a bridge that crossed over the pool leading to a shaded section near the falls, so we headed there to get a different look at this main attraction. There were reams of people streaming down this particular path, and I wondered where they all were coming from. It was only when we crossed over that I realized that perhaps this was the Gorge Trail leading to the other side of the falls. All the regret I'd been flirting with for missing the Gorge Trail, and we were going to get there anyway. How about that?

As we proceeded upwards along this trail, we encountered many more people, the road more traveled. All along the main fall and upwards, there were rock barriers to sit on and admire each of the rapids that lined its way until it splashed into the big fall at the end. Frequently, while my photographer spouse got a better shot of each of the water treasure, I sat on edge of these rock walls, with my dog Kirk wanting to jump on me, the wall, the falls and other people all at the same time. One time Kirk growled at another dog who challenged him, another time he joyfully leapt toward a fellow human who opened an exchange by saying hello to him. And each moment and each time we encountered another rapid, it was like a compounding lesson, that each moment and rapid merged together to create a life of its own, like every second in a person life culminated in a whole sheath of experience at the end of a day, a year, a life.

There was one waterfall we approached where there was a runoff flowing from the rock above. Standing underneath it, I was baptized by the water spurting from its altar, a renewal that it seemed I had walked all the way for, had made the pilgrimage just to see. It was as though all that had come before had led me to this moment, standing under this stream, and laughing as its cold wonder drank new life upon me, woke me to a new way of seeing things, a new way of being.

But wasn't it really true of any moment? In a sense, any moment, if I chose it to be, would lead me to a greater understanding of myself, the world around me, and Life itself, if I wanted it to. The journey didn't end after that life–giving waterfall, in a sense, telling me that it was all life-giving. We walked up the remaining steps, my spouse, dog and me. The pilgrimage didn't end with this personal shrine, because it all was a pilgrimage. And as we drove home, through the common market of Ithaca on the highway home, it was a lesson to drink and savor like the water flowing towards the people below at the feet of the falls.