La Mer as La Mere

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.

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.