From my office at Blue Hole, I can hear the splash of people swinging off the rope swings and the echoes of laughter drifting through the cypress trees. When I step outside, the scent of sunscreen and bug spray hangs in the thick July humidity. This is a place where people take off their shoes as soon as they leave the stone path, letting the ground greet their bare feet. They’ve come from busy places from Dallas and Houston and even the other side of the ocean. They’ve come to reconnect with nature, with themselves, and with something quieter than what the world has offered lately.
As someone who’s here 40 hours a week, I feel when things shift. And lately, things have shifted.
Right now, there’s hesitation in the air here. Before the swinging from the rope swings begins, there’s a pause. The tragedy in Kerr County is still so fresh, so raw, and hangs heavy over the Hill Country. Lives lost. Children swept away. Horrific updates come daily. It’s all haunting and constant. The grief is everywhere. Wimberley wasn’t directly impacted by this flood, but we’re all too familiar. Right now, it feels like the whole community is carrying a kind of survivor’s guilt. We’re grateful to be safe, but heartbroken just the same.
Over the past week, I’ve received calls from guests wanting to cancel or postpone their reservations. One woman from Dallas said with her voice breaking, “It just doesn’t feel right to go out to the Hill Country right now.” “That’s valid,” I replied. Because it is. We’re all carrying this pain. I’ve heard this many times over the last few days. On these brief phone calls no one can quite explain to me, a stranger, the feeling they’re engulfed with. I try to validate and quickly let them move on.
A few days ago, for the first time since this flood, I swam at Blue Hole. As I submerged, I thought about the act of swimming itself. How simple it seems to move your arms and legs, to keep your head above the surface. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how helpless it would feel to have water rushing all around you. To be pulled in every direction by something stronger than you. To be in water not as recreation, but as a threat.
That contrast hit hard. The creek was calm and still. But I couldn’t ignore how quickly it could change. How quickly it has changed. How water that soothes can also destroy. The act of swimming felt heavy. The water, once a symbol of joy, now felt like a witness to loss. I closed my eyes and floated on my back, letting the creek hold me. I thought about the weight of all those who were lost. About how the memory of them will ripple through these creeks and rivers forever. To swim like this, after so much loss, felt selfish. It felt indulgent to enjoy it and maybe that’s what makes it sacred.
As the sun went down and the riparian area darkened, fireflies emerged along the edges of the bank. A red-shouldered hawk hunted in the grass, and I heard the familiar calls of a nesting pair of barred owls in the trees above. The sky turned that perfect shade of dark blue and all was still.
It’s a new week now, and while time moves us farther from the tragedy, we haven’t forgotten. Even with people laughing and splashing in the water again, there’s somehow stillness in the air. A kind of quiet respect, like everyone knows not to be too loud, not to forget what just happened. A sense that we’re all still processing, and that’s okay.
Erica Flocke is a parks and recreation professional based in Wimberley, Texas, with a background in conservation and natural resource management. She has lived and worked across Texas, from the Piney Woods to the Trans-Pecos, which has shaped her perspective in many ways. [email protected]
