One day in early June, my boss at the Earth Law Center takes stock of his sprightly interns. He shakes his head and suggests that we ditch work and hike to an isolated hot spring. We looked at each other like “is this guy for real?”. To prove that he is, he draws us a map on a piece of scrap paper and tells us to scram and have fun. Us GPS sons and Google Maps daughters.
The steep descent to the river. The trees, impossibly tall, sprouting thin green leaflets. The sun filtering through the canopy, the grassy forest floor spongy underfoot. The many-petaled wildflowers, yellow like Crayola suns. The dog with a stick in her mouth bounding towards us through a part in the trees. A campsite coming into relief: a gravel firepit encircled by logs. The dog’s owners hand in hand, a tattered baseball cap and a makeshift walking staff, waving hello and goodbye.
Tilting our necks to a bruised swollen sky: black to the west and blue to the east. That dreaded rumble, that woeful boom, and a toss of the dice, a prayer to the clouds to stay the hell away. No one can remember exactly what to do if you get caught in a thunderstorm. Trees are bad, right? But we’re in a forest. Our service isn’t working. The car is a 40-minute uphill shlep that way no this way. We crouch by the logs as cymbals crash above, rocking back and forth on our tired heels. Dread turns to impatience as we watch the misty mass inch westward—far enough away that we creep to the embankment, quickening as we near the wide shallows, this mystic source of heat. Off come our sweaters and sneakers, discarded on the rocks like bird poo. Make-shift towel changerooms and bikinis wriggled on.
Rock pools built by hikers past, shoring the heat from the pull of the cool rushing river. Boulders streaked with gossamer slime. Toes first then knee-deep in the silt and the grime. Strange patches of bubbles. Some sulphurous goo. I wonder with joy at what nature can do. I’m too broke for spas but the steam here is free. We joke about jokes we had joked in the trees. Boss was right and tomorrow’s a day but to work you must live and to live you must play.
