Water is one of my safe places. Any water, anywhere. The ocean, lakes, streams, rivers, rain, puddles, swimming pools… Water is safe. Oh, I know it has the power to kill me, if I don’t keep my wits about me. Water is a trickster, not having a right or a wrong, it has rules, aligning it with the universe. Water must submit to gravity. It must listen to the inconstant song of the moon. It must spin one way when going down the drain in the northern hemisphere and the other direction when it’s exiting the tub in the southern one.
Water is my safe place. When I was younger, the ocean along the coast of southern California was my territory. The pacific ocean witnessed my first kiss. It is in this water where I met the grunion blipping their tiny silver bodies all around me, startling me into peals of laughter. Not alone. Water supported me, played with me, rocked me. I’ve swam in lakes, always too cold, the river, where Lucy and I go to our secret swimming hole, the waterfalls hidden along the pacific crest trail at deep creek, Puget sound, where Lucy learned to swim, where she learned that I am not a floatation device. Watching her paddle away from me filled me with such joy. So many places I’ve experienced the laughing mother of water.
When we went on road trips when I was a kid, the one concession my dad made to make the trip nicer for me was always to stop in a motel with a pool. That was my reward for sitting in the back seat for twelve hours, windows rolled up while my parents chain smoked in the front seat. We’d finally stop, and I knew that I could throw on my bathing suit and become buoyant. That was my vacation…my vacation from them, from the back seat of the car, scattered with Oreo cookie crumbs.
I have been humbled by water’s power, how easily it could crush me. The time I went body surfing after a storm had swelled the waves to over 6’, threatening to pound me into the sand, and I had to fight to get to shore. Water spared me that day but taught me the power of living by unwavering law.
Is there one water or is water many? It’s all the same water. On the surface, within. Water is the original trickster. It has millions upon millions of places to reside. It can appear in any form, solid, liquid or gas. It can float, melt, freeze, break rocks, perform any kind of dance. Water is part of everything, all life, me.
Off the coast of Panama, the tiny cruise ship stopped and opened its back gate. I dove into the sea, with no land in sight. Beneath the surface, weightless, motionless, cradled in sapphire , nothing but blue and salt and buoyancy. Water, within me, all around me, silence, support, love.
When I moved to Washington, I knew there would be a lot of rain. It has become such a part of me, the rain, soft or hard, warm or freezing. Sometimes, it rains for a hundred days in a row. Flying into the SeaTac airport, I can see just how saturated this place is, soaked, soggy, so much water that the land spits it out and encourages water to find pathways, forge trails, construct containers.
Water is on a journey, too. It hitches a ride on us, not caring where we take it, knowing it doesn’t matter because it’s not about the destination. Water has no destination, it moves in and out up and down and around and around and around in endless cycles.
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