The Opera Singer

In the early 1990’s, a large live oak fell into Santa Fe River about a mile below the Rise. Its massive trunk and tangle of branches spanned the channel. The only way past was through a ten-foot gap along the south bank. It was just wide enough to make the tree more of a “feature” than an obstacle.

Years passed and the tree decayed. Small branches broke away and the sharp edges were worn smooth by decay and flowing water. Eventually, all that remained were the trunk and a couple of dozen thick, curving limbs. What had begun as a chaotic tangle of twigs and branches had been crafted by the flow of time and water into a beautiful natural sculpture.

Viewed from downstream, the snag was unremarkable—attractive in the way of driftwood, but not unlike the dozens of other snags on the river. As you got closer, however, the angles shifted and all those random features—the twisted limbs, the knots, the cracks and highlighted grains and stains—fell into perfect alignment to create the image of a singing lady; not a prim choir-girl with good posture, but an impassioned singer with a towering beehive hairdo that would have made the Bride of Frankenstein envious. Her head, tipped back dramatically and her long, slender arms, held high in front of her as though reaching for the heavens, she was rapture incarnate.

We called her the Opera Singer; a name made more fitting by the fact that she made music. As the river water swirled around her thigh (or waist, when water was higher), it gurgled and bubbled in a way that created a lively percussion melody. With time, I came to appreciate her music as much as the singer.  I often caught myself listening for it long before I could reasonably expect to hear it. 

The Opera Singer became well-known to the local paddling community. Nobody made a big deal about her. She was a just beloved landmark that added color to paddler’s conversations. What could make an otter sighting more interesting than to say it was “a hundred yards upstream from the Opera Singer?”

Features like the Opera Singer remind me to listen to water. Snags, sweeps, boulders, shoals and the countless other objects that adorn all streams are often more than just visual features, they are musical interludes. Sometimes I schedule paddle trips on the middle Suwannee when I know the river will be singing.

Unlike most Florida rivers, the middle Suwannee is lined by massive limestone walls that extend below the water line. Over millennia, the flowing water eroded the rock at the water line. The resulting cavities range from small pockets to cave openings. Some are grottos lined with their own collections of smaller pockets at the waterline within their dark recesses, which adds a beautiful echoic quality. These features pop and sing and play delicate percussion when the wavelets generated by passing boats, splashing animals or even a stiff breeze enter and plop against their inner walls. Each pocket has a different note and volume, depending on its size and depth. The size and force of the wave also makes a difference.   

Floods filled the Santa Fe Valley in 2001. When the water receded the Opera Singer was gone—mostly. Her arms and her dramatic hair had been swept away, leaving only her torso and a disfigured head. The snag was, once again, just a snag. 

Word spread through the paddling community. People shook their heads and shrugged but before long she was all but forgotten. River people understand that the river is eternal, a liquid thread that binds everyone--past, present and future--who has ever known it, but that individual plants and people (and the occasional Opera Singer) come and go like the seasons.

A few weeks after the flood, I paddled up to the Rise. I had heard the Singer was gone, so I wasn’t surprised when I rounded the bend and saw her broken, twisted form in the distance. What did surprise me, however, was to hear her “voice.” She was still singing. While little remained of her graceful form--gone were the bouffant hairdo and the graceful arms that once reached for the heavens--her waist was still intact at the water line and the water passing around it was still gurgling, still singing her song. The singer had changed, but not the song.

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I’ve never been to an opera, but I'm familiar with the basic format; large-lunged people sing songs in a language nobody understands about gooshy things like love and windmills. 

Rivers are like operas. The heart of both things is a story—actually, a collection of  stories that are woven together to make one big story. If I've learned anything in my years of studying and watching nature, it’s that every river is an anthology of stories. Every feature—every boulder, shoal, tree, shrub, meadow and every single thing along its banks—has its own story that is also an integral part of the bigger, overarching story of the river. 

Ask an entomologist, and he’ll point to a rotting log or a tussock of floating vegetation and he’ll tell you dramatic tales of courtship, mating, defending territories, finding food and the countless life-and-death struggles that are constantly at play. Ask a geologist and he’ll point to that bolder in mid-channel and recount rising and falling seas and will describe amazing creatures, marine and terrestrial, that have occupied this spot over the past millions of years. The cave diver will tell you about the aquifer and cave systems surging through the earth beneath you. She will show you that the land has a pulse.

Now step back from these features and listen to the music accompanying them. Just listen. Allow yourself to enjoy the percussion of wind and water. You don’t have to know the language. Just listen and the music will tell you things no word can touch. Every feature plays the water like a percussion instrument and each is different. Fast flowing rivers sing dramatic and frenzied songs of steep slopes and jagged drops. Slower rivers whisper about easy terrain.  Large boulders grumble ancient tales that have echoed down the gorge since the water began while the willow strainers sizzle and pop with a restlessness that reflects the sandy, unstable ground these trees prefer.

These days, I notice the musical notes of water playing against stones and obstructions in ways I never did before. When a river song grabs my attention, I listen more closely and with more appreciation than I used to. I still know only a fraction of the language, but I enjoy the song just the same.