L'eau de vie

I have a little rock fountain in my kitchen. My mother bought it for me when I came back from Australia in 2001. It holds a picture of me and my friend, Justine, standing on the quay in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The first thing I do when I get up the morning is turn on that fountain and watch the water stream down over the little rocks. At the same time, I pour myself a glass of cool Portland tap water which is the first thing to pass my lips, quickly followed by coffee.
I love water. I enjoy the taste of it, the sound of it, and I insist on living by a flowing source of it. There is something calming and assuring about the constant flow of water. Energizing and invigorating too. Except of course when it is overflowing and flooding entire communities. Then, not so much.
I think about my favorite vacations, and they have all been in areas brought to life by the local water source. The Seine in Paris, the Arno in Florence, the Thames, the Brisbane River, Lake Geneva. And now we live at the convergence of two of the most historic and fruitful rivers in the country, the Columbia and the Willamette.
I have the pleasure every morning of crossing over the Willamette on my way to work. Some days, the sun shines on the chrome of the Fremont Bridge to my left or the Steel Bridge to my right and reflects onto the water in a brilliant display of light. Other times, when it's gray and overcast, the puffy clouds cast a silverish hue over the landscape that entrances me. Either way, I look forward to crossing and discovering the new painting of the day.
I know that I'm not alone in my hydro-veneration. Many people are equally enthralled, perhaps because we entered the world through a channel of water after spending nine months in a sac of it.
Did I just ruin the moment? My mother would either be really impressed or really grossed out right now. Knowing her, probably the latter.
Anyway, my point is this. Clearly, I have had too much coffee, and it's time to stop playing on the computer.