The Weight of Falling Water

The smell of wet stone always brings me back to the monsoon, to the way the air turns heavy and thick enough to swallow. It is a damp, metallic scent that clings to the back of the throat, tasting of minerals and ancient earth. When water moves with such relentless force, it does not just make a sound; it creates a vibration that travels through the soles of your feet, humming against your bones long after you have walked away. It is the feeling of being small, of being unmade by something that has no beginning and no end. We spend our lives trying to hold onto things, to keep them solid and still, yet there is a strange, quiet peace in watching something dissolve into a mist. If you stand close enough to the spray, you stop being a person and start being a part of the current. Does the river remember the shape of the rock it has worn away, or does it only know the freedom of the fall?

Ruben Alexander has captured this sensation in his image titled Deep Calls to Deep. The way the water turns to silk reminds me of that heavy, humid air I can almost taste. Does the stillness of this image make you feel the roar of the river, too?