Memories of Water

Memories of Water

As a child, every summer was spent in Cape Cod, MA, where we frequented Gull Pond.  It was a tranquil body of water where my parents felt safe enough to let me be alone at the water’s edge.

It became a time experienced completely internally… Perhaps a first experience of individuation.

I have so few event-driven memories of being a child, but my sensory memories are completely clear, so clear that I can still feel the water around me…

I remember sitting at the pond’s edge and feeling the water move in and out and up and down from the actions of people nearby, their bodies creating tides that connected us.

I remember feeling the surface tension of the water being magnetically attracted to my hand or watching a puddle rise, pooling with standing edges before suddenly breaching its borders and running freely.

Once, using a beach chair I repeatedly sat and moved further and further into the water, feeling the water surround me more with each sit, until the water was over my head and my chair almost floated.

I remember being so fully inside my head, free to see what happened if… No need to explain or justify.  No need to be more than I was.  No need for the approval of others. 

It was a safe, simple joy… being, trying, experiencing.

I continually watched what the water was doing.  I remember marveling how when I dug a hole, the water came to fill it. 

As the youngest, conversation at the dinner table was often over my head.  I tuned into the drips and designs running down my glass, each drip finding its own way.

In high school I had a newspaper route for a short time. One summer day it began to rain. Hard.  Torrential, fat wet rain. At first, I had that breathless sensation as my clothes began to feel wet.  I hunched my shoulders in an effort to protect myself from it. Within minutes I was soaked through to my underwear and my socks. The puddles inside my shoes squished and splat with each step. The summer rain was warm and soon my shoulders relaxed, and I began to celebrate. Dancing, twirling, whooping, I stood under downspouts of the houses nearby, taking showers in them, though I could get no wetter. I began feel to outside of time and expectations.  Splashing through puddles, kicking, jumping, dancing.  Each splashed-through-puddle exhilarated me again, its slightly colder water reminding me of my daring.

Now, lying face up in the pool, the water surrounds me, filling my ears and blocking out all sounds except those inside of me.  The sound of my breath is magnified. Buoyed, my body rises and falls ever so slightly with each breath. As I float, looking at the sky, the velvety softness of the water around me, almost disappears from notice. The quiet whisper of the water touching skin could be easy to ignore, but gratitude comes in the noticing. The whisper reminds me that I am lucky to be here in this moment, in this body, in this place.

Now, when I paint, I partner with the water, allowing her to exercise her will, and watching as she quietly carries the pigment into almost-transparencies, feathered blends, and dark irregular edges.  Each continues to evolve as puddles dry.

Water is not trying to please anyone or do what she is “supposed to do.”  She brings me back into my body.