For Karyn, who knows how to wait.

“It’s really something. You oughta see it.” The camp ground attendant waggled her finger at a narrow strip of green on the map. “Ain’t too many spots like it anywhere on earth.”

We had come to Washington County, Maine, the northernmost Atlantic shore in the United States, to find some of the last unspoiled coastland in the East. To most everyone else we knew, the lure to the shore was in hot, sandy beaches. But for Karyn and I, there had always been something more attractive about upper New England’s craggy, crenulated coast. “This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt”[1] said the Lord to the sea, but in Maine the ocean is a rebellious adolescent, constantly crashing into its younger brother, the rock-bound land. This perpetual sibling rivalry is the very heart of drama, going back to origins long before Abel ticked off Cain. We’ve walked sands of seven different colors in Hawai’i and stood on the beach where Paul defended himself before Festus, but when we want to see ocean we yearn for big boulders and struggling scrub pines. So the insistence of the park ranger that Cobscook Bay held an even deeper, if more subtle, wonder got our attention.

So it was the next day found us following her directions down a narrow peninsula to an obscure parking area marked by a sign so small and worn we almost missed it. As obscure and forlorn as the parking area looked, we were not surprised to find a good number of other cars already parked there, for here was surely, as the ranger had promised, a marvel not to be missed. A few minutes later we eagerly tramped down a short trail toward the waters edge to spot where “it” happened, just once each day. Guided by the voices of children laughing and parents’ shouts of “be careful on those rocks!” we soon came to the spot. While lovely in its own way, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the site itself, nothing that would tell you that this is where the impossible happens right before your eyes. But the other tourists on the rocks assured us that this was indeed the place. This is the place where a waterfall runs two ways.

Washington County is situated along the Bay of Fundy, which boasts the highest tide changes in the world. In some places, the daily change exceeds fifty feet. We first witnessed how dramatic such a change can be after arriving at our nearby campground. We set up our tent just above the broad, rolling waters of a lovely cove. As we settled down to bed, the moon shone upon hundreds of acres of shimmering water spread out before us. But we awoke in the morning to a different world. Where just hours before there had been an expanse of sea, now a vast, deserted mud flat was spread. As we breakfasted, we watched families and elderly couples move out across the flats to gather the wealth of clams the sea left behind each day.

This scene, we were told, repeated itself in just about every bay and cove around the Bay of Fundy. Except one. At the spot where we sat later that day three separate inlets from the sea converged on one river head. The promise of the ranger and the local brochures was that, at least once each day, this river totally reversed the direction of its flow. Part of each day it flowed inland; the rest it moved seaward. And at some magical moment it would be exactly in between, poised between one direction and the other.

It was that “magic moment” of course that the tourists came to see. The idea of witnessing a mighty river standing absolutely still, and then reversing its direction, was worth leaving their RVs and delaying arrival at the next water park or outlet village. The only problem with the whole thing was that the river only performed on its own schedule, and no one seemed to know what that schedule was. None of us clambering on the natural rock grandstand had thought to procure a tide chart. Before long, lunches were eaten, all the tallest rocks had been climbed, and impatience arose. All that was clear was that the tide was coming in and showing no inclination to do otherwise anytime soon. The water was not just moving inland, it was rushing to get there, cascading over rocks. Thus, at least at a small scale, it was indeed a waterfall, or at least a very active rapids. It was pretty clear that such a strong flow wasn’t about to change direction any time soon, if ever. One by one the families around us moved off, each as the whining level of its children reached the appropriate pitch. Before long, it was just Karyn and me and the raging water.

Enjoying the sudden peace and quiet, we settled into comfortable spots and began our wait. Every once in a while a new group of people would stumble down the trailpath, clamber up the rocks, and ask us, “Anything happening?”

“Just the tide coming in,” we’d reply to each.

“Oh. We thought this was the place where the waterfall changes directions. C’mon kids, back in the RV!”

Silence again. Two hours went by. Three. Was it a fool’s errand? Was this the local joke, get the rube tourists to sit on rocks and watch water go by for hours? Every so often we’d ask each other if we should leave. Each time we agreed: let’s wait. Let’s see what happens. What was happening was that the water was rising. Before long we noticed that the rocks where families had been spreading picnic lunches not that long ago were now underwater. Slowly but surely our proud point became a tiny tower under assault. Every so often, we’d inch ourselves up one rock higher.

Well, maybe this was a joke on the tourists, but something kept us there anyway. Too many vacations are just a living of our normal pace of life in a different setting. Hurry up, the penguin feeding is in ten minutes! If we leave the water park by 11 can we make the staged Indian attack at noon? How far to the next rest room? Somehow, without really saying it to each other, both Karyn and I knew what we wanted was someting different. We wanted to enjoy a place, absorb ourselves in it, and not worry about the normal demands of time.

“Hey, I thought that there was some kind of reversing falls around here somewhere? You folks just going to sit there all afternoon? What if nothing happens?” Another momentary invasion by tourists. A few quick camera clicks and they were gone again.

But far from “nothing” was happening all around us. Just beneath our feet a giant red crab clambered across the rocks. An eagle went on errands to and from a nest in a tree just across the water from us. Seals turned their dinner tables into playgrounds. And the water climbed and climbed and climbed.

Sitting that long you see things you never see on a “normal” day, though they are things that are always happening around you, even back in the city. You observe the slow change in light. As you keep track of a shadow moving between two rocks, you realize that you are watching your planet rotate. You notice the subtle change in scents as the wind shifts direction.

Most of all though, you enjoy the amazing grace that there is another person snuggled up beside you who actually enjoys all of this every bit as much as you do.

Four hours. Five hours. No tourists have come by in quite some time now. It’s time to find a good restaurant for dinner and look for the next vacant motel room. But not for us. We go on staring at torrent, a full five feet deeper than when we arrived. It’s a full-fledged waterfall now, as the brochures promised, and nothing is turning it back. But wait. Are we imagining that? No, it really is. The water really is, almost imperceptibly, slowing down. For several minutes now it has not moved any higher up our rocks. We grow very silent with anticipation, and the next thing we notice is the change in sound. It is undeniable now; the roar of the falls is not quite so lionish as it was a few minutes ago. After many more minutes it is clear that the surge of the water is losing momentum. Karyn takes my hand in hers and I look over to see the light in her eyes. We have waited and we shall be rewarded. It’s not a myth or a cruel joke. The promise will come true.

Now the water is still moving inland, but only barely. There are no more whitecaps on the rocks. And then, so suddenly you might have missed it if you weren’t watching, the water came to a complete stop. For the space of only a couple of minutes it was as still as a pond in the morning. I’m sure we held our breath. Karyn lifted her arm and pointed out to the center of the river. There a tiny whitecap appeared again, but it appeared on the other side of its rock from where it had been half an hour before. In another few minutes it was quite clear. This mighty body of water, which all afternoon had bustled insistantly landward, was now moving to the sea. The change had happened, and we who waited had been the only ones to see it.

“Mom! Dad! I think the spot is up here by these rocks!” A young boy, his t-shirt proclaiming “See Bar Harbor from our Climate Controlled Deluxe Luxury Bus!” clambored up the rocks behind us. “Nah, just some stupid slow-moving water. Nothin’ to see here.”

1 Job 38:11

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 11:19 pm and is filed under Family & Friends, It`s All About Me, Tell Me a Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.