In celebration of the honor awarded watercolor artist and author Obi Kaufmann last week, I started flipping through my copy of The State of Water and had my mind blown, linguistically:

I always associated ‘shed’, in the context of ‘watershed’, with sloughing something off, shedding it like a skin. So, when I saw ‘watershed’ on a map I pictured the going-to place for water, where water sheds off mountains and hills and the like. But I always wondered why the word focused on the “shedding” aspect rather than the “holding” aspect. Because of this, I associated the term “watershed” with movement-toward, coming-together, flux–and maybe that is more accurate than the stable stagnant ‘pool’ I admit I picture when I think of a water shed. The only water I’ve seen in ‘sheds’ (as in a freestanding rough storage structure) is standing mosquito-hosting muck. Maybe my mistaken etymology was actually an insight? I think I’ll go with that.

I am sure I (a) noticed this the first time I read it, (b) felt like I had a revelation, and (c) forgot, obviously.

Anyway Mr. Kaufmann is one of my favorite watercolorists and naturalists and his books on California ecology are a delight. I keep them over my desk in place-of-privilege granted to books I pick up to noodle through most often.