Laura Paskus has been visiting the same section of the Rio Grande for 15 years. She has a loop she likes to walk or run where she observes the river’s water levels and takes in the water’s smell from season to season. She watches for the non-human creatures that make their homes nearby, noticing the movement of coyotes, identifying birds in the flyway, and spotting badger dens.
For Paskus, her walks along the Rio Grande have become an intentional practice. It’s a time that she uses to check in with the river, asking questions like, “How are we treating you?” and “How are you feeling?”
As a journalist, Paskus has covered the Rio Grande extensively . Whether grappling with the consequences of our warming planet for the silvery minnow, increased wildfires, or endangered waterways, she has covered it all over the past two decades in newspaper articles, magazine features, radio programs, and as the host of New Mexico PBS’s Our Land series. But of all the reporting she’s done on the environment, Paskus’ favorite medium to write and to read is the personal essay. And as she’s discovered, the essay is often what lands most powerfully for readers.
“There’s hesitancy, if you’re a serious reporter, that you can never acknowledge your personal feelings — and don’t write about your experiences or your vulnerabilities or anything like that [because] you’ll somehow be less of a reporter,” Paskus says of her affinity for personal essays. “I internalized that a lot, especially as a woman. And then at some point, I was like, ‘I want to be the most effective communicator I can be through the written word.’”
The power of the personal essay is evident in the anthology Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth, a book released in October by Torrey House Press that Paskus both edited and contributed to. The collection features 17 writers across the West who impart water stories that are both personal and profound. The essays act as a confluence of tributaries that invite readers into a shared love of landscape and waterways.
Of the 17 contributors in Water Bodies, eight live in New Mexico. The others include writers like CMarie Fuhrman in Idaho, Chris La Tray in Montana, Ruxandra Guidi in Arizona, and Aaron A. Abeyta in Colorado. The range of writers and voices in the collection infuses the book with a richness of perspective that reflects the varied cultures and geographies of the West.
Writing about water in the West can often feel heavy — for one, there is so little of this vital substance to begin with. And when humans take more than the earth has to offer — for oil and gas extraction, giant data centers, and desert golf courses and resorts, among other things — the topic of water in the West can be cause anxiety or despair. But Paskus has curated a fertile, free-flowing collection of essays that seeks to ease the fear that surrounds so much of environmental writing by celebrating, honoring, and praising the water that gives us all life.
“There have been times in my life when I was really feeling super angry and starting to feel depressed because I was reporting on climate change all the time, and frustrated about politicians or deniers or people who just weren’t giving it the space that it needs,” says Paskus. “I was really, really struggling. And so, in my reporting starting in early 2021, I decided that going forward, I was going to start figuring out how to feel despair myself but not keep putting that on the audience.”
In Water Bodies, Santana Shorty’s poems ripple through the essays, carrying rivers, acequias, and the yearning of plants in the high desert. Fatima van Hattum’s poems capture glaciers and mountains like glistening drops. An essay by Leeanna T. Torres juxtaposes human rules with the older wisdom of our waters. And the history of settler colonialism at the Pueblo of Zuni and the daily encounters with Black Rock Dam ebb and flow throughout Desiree Loggins’ essay, pooling in the end as the community comes together to celebrate unexpected water and life.
Although the book is slim, it is teeming with life. The poems, essays, and illustrations honor the earth, what has come before us, and what may be ahead. In her mission to unburden her audiences, Paskus has triumphed in the voices she’s collected for Water Bodies. She attributes this, in part, to tools she’s learned from faith communities, which include theologian Larry Rasmussen’s writing on climate grief and eco anxiety, and to learning from community leaders, like Paula Garcia, who serves as the executive director the New Mexico Acequia Association.
“After the Calf Canyon fire and all the fights with FEMA, Paula opened the Congreso [de las Acequias] in 2022, saying ‘Our home, our mountains, our homelands have burned. But we still love them,’” Paskus remembers. “So, that framing for me is really important; we have caused the planet’s climate to change, and there’s all these cascading effects, but if we, as individuals and communities and as a species continue to love our landscape, we can find joy in them. You can find gratitude in all of that and more fiercely protect them.”
Paskus describes her relationship with water as one that honors the water as a friend and being with a consciousness. Small, daily actions such as watering her plants are moments she takes to pause and appreciate how truly miraculous water is. “There’s this deep, magical beauty in your own place; if you’re paying close enough attention, you notice not just the change in the seasons, but the change in the climate over time,” Paskus says. “And I just think that intimacy with landscape, and all the good teachers who are a part of your landscape, is really exciting.” ◀
Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth, edited by Laura Paskus, Torrey House Press, October 2024, 144 pages
Emily Withnall is a writer and editor living in Santa Fe. Read her work at emilywithnall.com.
Water Bodies reading and Q&A with editor, with readings by New Mexico contributors Michelle Otero, Santana Shorty, Leeanna T. Torres, and Fatima van Hattum
