Angel Wings: The French Creek Watershed

By Molly Pascal

I have long been fascinated with angels, though I would not know what they look like without the assistance of artists. In 1494, Michelangelo freed a few from marble. In 1913, Rilke accused some of being deaf. (I’ve had sufficient personal evidence on this point to concur.) In 1987, the filmmaker Wim Wenders captured one perched at the apex of human engineering, marvelously indifferent to height as he gazed down at Berlin from a church spire. Whether paint or words or celluloid, these angels share a common theme: a human form. They have bodies, with torso, arms, and legs. They could be mistaken for something mundane, if it were not for that one avian tweak: wings.

I’ve always longed to know more. Are the wings corporeal, sinewy with muscle, under the thickness of feather? Are they vivisected by arteries, percolating white blood? Or, are they illusory, cloud and smoke? Unlike birds, angel wings sprout between shoulder blades. Yet, I know why they are necessary. In the Hebrew, angel means ‘messenger.’ In order to travel between heaven and earth, one must be able to fly. Sometimes I forget- and recently I was reminded. Not all birds fly. Not all wings are made of feather. And, not all artists are human.

***

Over thirty years ago, my family bought land along French Creek, a river which once transported George Washington. Dozens of tiny, unnamed streams and spring run-off merge into this tributary of the Allegheny. In spite of its oil-rich location, the small waterway has historically been harnessed by farmers, thus avoiding the parasitic death-blow of industry and leading to its current status as one of the most ecologically important streams in Pennsylvania. The watershed, according to the Nature Conservancy, is one of America’s “Last Great Places.” My father commissioned a local carpenter named Jack Stephens to build a rustic cabin into the canyon wall. There is a gas range, but until recently, no electricity. We used candles and oil lamps for light. A natural spring, rerouted as it falls down the mountain, delivers both flow and water pressure. A circular glass fireplace in the center of the great room provides the only source of heat.

There are few neighbors: some private homes, many of them Amish, and a sparsely used Boy Scout camp built on land that belonged to a settlement of the Seneca of the Wolf Clan of the Delawares. We’ve grown to know French Creek over the decades and through the seasons, in flood and in drought, during migration and hibernation. We’ve seen the river freeze, then melt, ice echoing like gunshot as chunks crack free and float downriver. We’ve canoed past great blue herons, and through a swallow pit-stop en route to Canada, swarming until we paddled in a false darkness of flapping wings. The trees battle beaver and disease; knotweed terrorizes the banks; bluebells flourish; the bears come to drink. We know the deer path, the rocks where the turtles sunbathe, the pools of trout, and the eryie, massive as a Cadillac, parked in a tree two islands past the swimming hole.

A few years ago, a bridge that crossed the river at Carlton town fell into disrepair and required replacement. Up went a sign. BRIDGE CLOSED. The months passed, but no construction crew arrived. The traffic on the canyon road which passed our cabin grew worse, part of a long forced detour. We began to worry that the closure might be permanent. We assumed the problem was limited local founds, not uncommon for a relatively poor rural area. We were completely wrong. It turned out that the problem was mussels. The French Creek watershed boasts rich biodiversity, including 27 varieties of fresh water mussels. This quiet form of wildlife actually falls under a very special category. They are protected under the Endangered Species Act, after nearly being wiped out to make mother-of-pearl buttons in the 19th century. Construction could endanger four categories of mussels-- Northern Riffleshell, Rayed Bean, Snuffbox, and Clubshell. Nobody wanted that shift from “at risk” to “extinct.”

Ironically, the species has gone largely un-noticed. Or is it the lack of notice that has permitted them to thrive? Mussels are passive and sessile, not wild creatures that excite viewers. They are pet rock, not majestic lion. Nobody knew what to do, so the bridge stayed closed.

***

When I was growing up, I never paid attention to the shells. Now, I pick one up and inspect it. I hold it in my hand. The live mussels can be difficult to spot. The exoskeleton serves as camouflage. The globular shape gives them the appearance of stones. In summer, thunderstorms barrage the country, but the vegetation capitalizes, quaffing the run-off. The result is shallow water, exposing the dead mussels. Current and time splay the shells open along the spine, an open casket. Hundreds are caught in the gnarled arms of tree roots or beached on the shores of unveiled summertime islands. It is these shells that rivet the eye. They look extraordinarily similar to angel wings. Instead of wings made of feather, these are made of shell. I touch the inside, the glistening hard belly of nacre.  The opalescent white mother-of-pearl is white, but like a paint store, comes in a hundred shades. The elderly grow nacre thick as calluses and have the wingspan of a bird in flight; the young could fit in a baby’s palm, thin and wispy as baby ears.

***

Eventually, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission came up with a plan. It was charmingly old-fashioned. They would remove the mussels by hand. It was slow, methodical work. They carried the mussels to shore in buckets, gently cleaned and tagged them. They packed the mussels into coolers, drove to a different section of river, and repeated the process in reverse, unpacking and depositing each one. In the end, divers rescued over 3500 mussels by hand. Only then did construction begin. It is not often that our world prioritizes wildlife over technology.

A new outfitter in Utica, PA rents canoes and kayaks and offers shuttle rides. With increased popularity comes increased use.  In the mornings, we venture down to the riverbank nervously to survey the damage. We pick up empty beer cans with the same intentional dismay as extracting nits of lice from hair.

Recently, we decided to hang a trash bag, though with our pessimism about human nature, we didn’t have much hope that it would be used. That evening, we listened to the happy shouts and splashes of summer vacation, followed by the rev of ATVs on the dirt road. To our surprise, we found a clean bank.  The trash bag bulged with crushed cans. Perhaps they did understand what a precious spot this is; even if the messenger was, in this case, an ordinary human.

Molly Pascal lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two children. Her writing has appeared in Lithub, The Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsweek, Huffington Post, Salon, The Jewish Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Fringe Literary Magazine, among others. Various short stories and essays have been named finalists in contests with Glimmer Train, Profane, the Texas Observer and Pen Parentis.