A black and white photo of the hill in my backyard that is cut away by water every time it rains. Dyed blue raffia stands in for the ephemeral water and actual wild violets from the yard decorate the piece.

The border of the piece reads: “Water is both a creator and a destroyer… It brings new life, and it also carries it away. Every attempt to control it is ultimately futile. Only gravity is obeyed.”

These words directly reflect my family’s experience with water on our property. We live near the bottom of a valley, and every time it rains water courses through our yard. In the past couple years, there have been some major storms and floods, and our hill is being cut away each time, rather rapidly. It is a constant reminder of how powerful water is. We have plans to bring in a machine and to create some dirt mounds as barriers to reroute the water to the side of our yard instead of through the middle. However, we are not confident that our efforts will succeed or how long the changes will last. Water is an uncompromising force that only obeys gravity, and we wouldn’t change what it brings for the world–the greenest grass and a constellation of vivid, purple violets in the spring.