Water is one of the many things I like to think about.
71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water. 73% of the human heart and brain is water.
Ocean currents move people, weather, animals from one shore to the other, river currents flush out debris and transport goods between ports.
Blood currents deliver oxygen to muscles and flush toxins from the body.
While still in the womb, mere weeks from taking our first breath of air, we take practice breaths under water - inside our mothers. Water forms tears of joy, and of sorrow.
71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water. 73% of the human heart and brain is water.
Ocean currents move people, weather, animals from one shore to the other, river currents flush out debris and transport goods between ports.
Blood currents deliver oxygen to muscles and flush toxins from the body.
While still in the womb, mere weeks from taking our first breath of air, we take practice breaths under water - inside our mothers. Water forms tears of joy, and of sorrow.
While interviewing director Derrick LaMere for the upcoming
screening of his film, United by Water, all of these themes came to mind as he
talked about the importance of 'bringing the people back to the water' - in
acts of conservation of resources, preservation of culture, and reconciliation
of human relationships.
His other films also are about people returning to the water
to reconnect with their environment, their roots, their human-ess.
"Your name is very powerful," I said, thinking of
the French translation of La Mer, The Sea
"It is, the water is, in many ways, our mother,"
he said - referring to the French translation of his actual name, La Mere, The
Mother
And then he told me of his grandmother, and his great
grandmother.
And now I'm thinking of Water in terms of Mother
How, when I was a child, I would dive deep to the bottom of
the pool and try to stay there, marveling at the feeling in my ears of hearing
the blood rush with each heart beat, and the muffled shouts above of splashing
kids in the pool . I'd pop up for air and look at my mother sitting on the
bleachers beneath an umbrella - holding my baby brother. Is this what he heard
while he was inside of her?
Even now, on days when the world is too much with us, I'll
slip into a warm bath and slide under the water, with just my nose above the
surface. Listening to the inner sounds of my body carrying on: the beat of my
heart, the inhalation of breath into my lungs, and the muffled drip, drip of
the faucet, and all is right with the world again.
