Essay #2- Water

"Elemental Pool"- San Diego, CA

When I feed my son a cup of water, I usually find myself saying something to the effect of, "Did you know you're made up of mostly water, baby?"  Then I think to myself, "Wow, that doesn't even scratch the surface."  Sometimes I continue on a baby-sized rant about the very water that's in his cup coming from the faucet, from the pipes, from the reservoir, from the rain, from the clouds, and so on, and so forth.  When I think about it, it occurs to me that I am trying to explain one of the most elemental and monumental concepts ever to my 9-month old son, and then it occurs to me that with some of my simplifications, I am actually telling him a few untruths.  This is reminiscent of the age when my teachers thought I was too young to understand that there were numbers lower in value than zero, therefore didn't bother going into negatives.  Years later I remember resenting this.  But now that I have a mommy-sized brain, I am much less offended that I was spared the negatives at that age.  I was allowed the gift of blissful ignorance.  That is no longer my gift to have, but it is one I have passed on down the line to my little Sachem, for him to decide what he'd like to do with it.  In the depth of my existence, I hope he decides to ride the wave as long as possible, and decide what reality is for him.  When it comes down to it, there is only so much that I know about the very technical intricacies that are involved with condensation and evaporation and all of those other annoyingly boring terms that simply add up to the much more interesting...TRANSFORMation.  Water gives life, changes life, and takes life.  Sometimes I feel the water in a stream and almost expect it to reach out to my hand and pull me into another world.  Often times when I'm on the beach, I feel the ebb and flow of a monstrous wave, lurking far out of view, waiting for an unexpected moment to rush the shore and reunite me with creation.  Even in the bathtub, the thought remains, underneath the surface exists a world wholly unknown to me, always whispering and cajoling me to sink below and experience the yang to my yin.  To transform would be to truly live, to feel the splitting of every part of my body into the rushing rivers and surging seas all over the world.  Then words like vaporization and absorption would no longer be how I would try to teach my son of water, but I could instead help him feel what it is to truly be connected to everything, by being water.  

"Running Steps"- Staten Island, NY