How insignificant the human world seems as I struggle to maintain my footing on the boat tilting like a scale trying to find its balance. Walls are no longer plaster or wood but skyscrapers of water pouring over a hidden cliff. My tears of joy mix with the mist that dances through the air, and I feel powerless. Powerless, but willing to see the power flow elsewhere.

I am on the Maid of the Mist, a New York State attraction that takes visitors from far and wide to the base of the horseshoe waterfall of Niagara Falls. All for the price of $25.25, I experienced sights, sounds, smells, and thoughts that will forever hold a value greater than the price paid. Earlier that day, my aunt called saying to be ready in five. I almost said no— too preoccupied working on some personal project. Looking back, my ignorance is almost shameful. As if my “personal project” could be worth more of my time than experiencing the sheer power of the concept of existence itself.

As humans, I think we get caught up in life too much: not tangled in the actionable verb living, but the classification of life through a list of human-defined qualifications. As a result, we create an artificial hierarchy that sets humans down the path to value something considered to have life over something that does not. And, to further distinguish the human species, we create more division by valuing organisms on different levels depending on how closely “complex” their life systems are to our own. But some humans (fortunately) know that intelligence is not so rigidly defined, as scientists are realizing that organisms like fungi or octopuses have systems complex in divergent ways to our own (making them different than humans, but not necessarily less intelligent).

So when I am looking at the water, a human-defined lifeless something, I question what else humans are missing in the Western cultural understanding of water. By putting water at the bottom of our society’s hierarchy of compassion and care, we forget that the water pouring over Niagara Falls is individual droplets. We forget that these droplets are powerful enough to create miles of gorge, carving out rock faster than man. We forget that these droplets give us the ability to live. We forget that we are at the mercy of the Falls to create our landscape. The Falls has the power to destroy us if we are not careful and the power to sustain us.

As I stand (or at least try to) on the Maid of the Mist boat, I remember it all. I remember that I am just as skippable as a stone and as small as a water drop. I remember what the English language does not have the words to describe. Our words are inherently flawed, attributing verbs to a human action so I am left to personify water which should be oppositely personified. I want to describe Niagara Falls with words solely defined by it— not words first defining man which I hope the reader is able to properly translate to the subject at hand. My vocabulary is limited by the language I am taught, giving the human action to the water when water should inhabit a new layer of meaning itself.

Why do we say Niagara Falls, yet we humans can jump off cliffs? The intention behind a jump is different than the accident of a fall. So what about the word waterfall? We name this noun assuming a waterfall is an accident or mistake, creating a dichotomy between those who are humans and those who are not. Why does the water not have the “jump” to encapsulate such intention behind its movements? Whether Niagara Falls can have a literal intention or not is less important than the connotations we have imposed (intentionally or unintentionally) upon water when we say it “falls”. In falling, we say water is powerless, accidentally moving as it does. But when I stand at the base of Niagara Falls, I see nothing but power. Unless everyone pays that $25.25 fee, water is still categorized far below humans in terms of value and importance. We will still pollute our water with plastics, oil, and toxic chemicals. We will continue to destroy the very thing that allows us to create the superior-feeling title of life. How can we expect humanity as a system to improve when the most widespread language cannot appropriately define the value of water? If a person cannot share compassion with the water that flows in the lake, how will more people feel motivated to protect these environments?

Well here’s a start: waterfalls are waterjumps.

PS: I know “waterjumps” sounds weird, but any new word is generally weird when it is unfamiliar. Maybe eventually the English language will acquire new words to facilitate the change we humans need to make to protect our home on earth.

Psssstttt… Hey there! I also made a VIDEO of when I went on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls! There’s bEaUtIfUl footage of the falls AND a poem that ties in with the essay you just read. Click below for the video

xx Stephanie Froebel