The Run Returns

What surveyors around here call a “wet weather stream” runs by the house. These streams are also called “runs.” Not much of a watershed feeds it—thankfully—or we’d have lost a lot more unsecured items over the years, when it becomes a raging torrent after heavy rains.

Our little run flows half the year—from late fall through late spring. During the summer thirsty trees along its banks eagerly drink up all its water (except just after a hard rain), so its flow dries up. When fall’s dormant period arrives those trees begin their slumber, which allows the stream to run along and eventually make its contribution to the Potomac River and then the Chesapeake Bay. That gives us a very nice change; half the year it babbles along and for the remainder of the year it can get very quiet.

So it’s now that time of year when the little stream begins its uninterrupted winter’s run. Its constant bubbly, burbly voice provides gentle background chatter. Reposing in the evenings in my outdoor tub, I listen to its light-hearted murmuring; noting that it sounds a little like indistinct cocktail-party chitchat. But every now and then a few burbles stand out from the quiet chatter—sounding eerily like random syllables of human speech.

In a few months there will be a short period, as late spring transforms into summer, when the run will dry up and fall completely silent. The awakened trees will once again suck up all its water, but the singing insects will have yet to begin their incessant summer chorus. The nights are ghostly silent then. The only sounds are the flapping of firefly wings—much too hushed for my old ears to perceive.

So for the next few winter months the stream’s subtle chatter will be my bathing companion—now and then irritatingly interrupted by a distant dog’s barking. I find the creek’s babble to be a soothing sound. I can lay back and let its lilting chorus lull me into reverie—well, except for those infrequent moments when the human-seeming syllables get tossed out. They almost cause me to sit up and peer into the darkness, fooled into thinking that I’m not alone after all.