Auntie Ruth was thrilled about the raft, thrilled that I had built the raft. I didn’t build the raft by myself. Auntie Ruth’s daughters, Ellie and Kat, were there: they did so much. So did my sister Lara. We strapped big logs together on a cold pebbly beach: strapping was the main problem. Getting the logs was easy. They were heavy, but were right there on the shore. Auntie Ruth helped us figure out how to do the strapping. We worked all morning. Auntie Ruth brought us some great snacks. Then we began to drag it in. We wished Joe had been there. Joe was Ellie and Kat’s big brother. Joe was tall, and he would have been a lot of help. But he was hiding in the bushes. So we thought. We thought he was watching. We dragged the raft into the water. Pretty still that morning, and it was really exciting. We didn’t think it would float, it was so heavy. We jumped on it. Got our poles and pushed off. We weren’t sure where to go, but the main thing was that it floated. What a victory. We wanted to name it, too. We thought of naming it Joe. Auntie Ruth was thrilled.
- Alan Bern
Today, if you look up Roker Beach you’ll see miles of golden sand; a promenade; a landscaped seafront; a laughing child with an ice cream cone. In every photograph the sky will be blue. It’s not how I remember it, paddling with my brother in the icy waters of the North Sea coast on a grey September afternoon in the ‘60s. I thought every sea would be just like it; that waves in every ocean would nip at numbing feet. So, that first summer, when Dad towed the caravan down to the south of France, I braced myself for cold water. I’ve forgotten so much of that time, but my first footstep into the Mediterranean, my first giant leap from chilling waters — that’s still as crystal clear as the day I jumped in.
- Alan Peat
Awake just after dawn, I open my eyes to a most magical sight, a bit of paradise, usually just a setting in a dream. Gentle warmth rests on my exposed arms as I gaze out at a turquoise ocean, a color so radiant and fresh that my eyes fill with tears. Only a day before I was shoveling my way to the car, making my way through a blustery snowfall to get to the airport. Sitting up in bed I marvel at the glistening blue green water, an offering to me in my grief. The water, having absorbed all color except this color, fills me with a calm I haven’t felt in months. Deeply grateful for this gift from friends, I allow a sliver of hope. After coffee I head out for a run that ends in the most delightful sensation, diving into that turquoise water, my whole being released into its liquid embrace.
- Ann Carter
I watch my thirty-year-old daughter splashing in the surf with her nephews, on Long Beach, San
Francisco. But in memory I’m seeing her three-year-old self on a Cornish beach in England. It’s the first time for the five children to be by the sea and they stand looking down the beach at the distant waves rolling in, hesitant. But not the three-year-old. With a squeal she is off running towards the water on her stubby legs, waving her hands, squealing. I follow her. There’s no danger, the tide is going out, the waves small. She reaches the shallows where there’s a little foam and the water hardly moves. She runs in, her bare feet splashing the water, sits down with a plop and beats on the waves with her hands, chortling, as they flow around her. In a little while, I crouch down beside her and she turns to me, her face full of delight, “water, splash, splash,” she says, foam and sand running through her fingers, falling back into the water.
- Antonia Matthew
When I was five, we moved from an old apartment into a brand new house, one of four small Capes on quarter acre lots. The best room in the house was the big bathroom upstairs where the basin, the tiles, even the bathtub, were all the same pretty shade of light green. When I was ten, my parents let me use the stall shower by myself. Besides the showerhead above, there were smaller ones in the wall, two on each side. Our house wasn’t fancy, but no one else I knew had this kind of shower where you could turn the spray on yourself from all different directions. The green bathtub was even better! I poured in bubble bath and let the foam fill to the top, even over the top. I had to clean up the wet floor with a towel but no matter. I hated swimming lessons at the Y because the water was so cold it made my teeth chatter, but at home I could safely sink up to my chin in warm sudsy water the color of a calm sea.
- Barrie Levine
I remember when I was very little, trying to comprehend the phenomenon of sweat. My dad came home from working all day in our farm’s wheat fields and tending the cattle in our big herd of Black Angus. He was totally soaked to the bone so I asked him why he had taken a shower with his clothes on. He just lifted his shirt a couple of times and said “sweat.” “Okay,” I said, as I jumped onto the porch swing next to him. “Can I sweat like that?” He shrugged his shoulders. “What are the rules?” I really was curious. He grinned a sideways smile and I figured I wasn’t going to get much more of an explanation. We sat in silence. After about ten minutes he said “Hard work in the sun.” “Is it dangerous?” I jumped in with my questions when I could. “Nah,” he said. More silence. Then he ruffled my hair and chuckled. “It’s very stinky,” he added with a wink. Then we had to go inside and get ready for supper. I figured I would learn more about wet sweat sometime later.
- Blue Waters
I am immersed in cold lake water, hot sun reflecting off my face, about twenty feet from the wooden dock. I stop there, kicking to keep my head above water and take a mental picture of my dog and John D. I want to remember this scene forever. Thirty years later, I can conjure up this picture and still see that black dog and that skinny man who loved her almost as much as I did. They sit on the dock, wet and glistening, smiling in the sun. This world has no divorce or sorrow; only a black dog who jumps in the water after I jump. She cannot tolerate watching me sink beneath the surface. When I disappear, she is compelled to save me. Half Labrador, retrieving is intense in her blood, so she plunges in, splashing after me. I emerge under her until she is sprawled over my shoulders in the water. Laughing, I climb the ladder to the dock and do it all again, as excited as a child. The dog and the water remain a delightful spot in time in my memory . . . a few happy moments from 1970.
- Carol Johnston
Water becomes a very special commodity to one living in the desert, and every drop gathered at the well and carried home is precious and welcome, even by a Peace Corps volunteer. Back stateside, running water and hot water spurting from the bath spout are never taken for granted. Monsoons and tsunamis, on the other hand, spark fear and concern. Spring rains invite earthworms and green growth and a cover for tears of grief while August rains refresh the spirit. Standing ankle-deep in Maine’s ocean water quickly turns one’s flesh blue while the turquoise splash of wavelets off Maui sends a different sensation — a calming warmth rippling throughout the body. Fog curling up from pre-dawn meadows can be mesmerizing and mysterious; steam rising from a tea kettle provides a sense of comfort on a cold winter evening. Waterfalls, free-flowing or frozen, are just plain awe-inspiring. Icicles clinging to New England rooflines might be reminders of Gram’s iced layer cakes or perhaps they are holiday light decorations. No matter, for those without clear, clean drinking water, I ask prayers, for there are far too many in need.
- Deborah Burke Henderson
My father taught me how to swim in the ocean. How to wade forward — ankle-high, knee-high, waist-high — through the rush of water. How to turn sideways against the waves and lift my arms to balance against the undertow. As the water reached chest-high, how to face forward — never turn your back to the waves — then dive into the crash and churn. Breast stroke and kick, kick, kick. Through, then up, then out of the water to grab that imperfect breath. Dive, stroke, kick, surface one more time, maybe twice, maybe three, until — you’ve reached it! You’re beyond the breakers. Here the waves are friendly moving hillsides and we are free to bob and dunk (Under? Over!) as the swells, enchanted, roll in. Soaring uplift. Playful drop. Giddy exhilaration. It never occurred to me, eight years old, not to follow my father. I never considered that I might not be able to do it, to learn the rules and repeat his steps. Beyond the breakers was where I belonged.
- Ellen Orleans
When I was a child, I used to go swimming in the summer in a pond on the edge of our village. I would go there sometimes with my cousins, sometimes with my classmates. At first I was just splashing around, because I didn't know how to swim. I think I was a little scared. The water wasn't very deep, but I was most afraid of leeches, which I considered a kind of aquatic vampire. I felt like it was possible that I could run out of blood. One day, some older boys, noticing that I was just tickling the water, rushed at me to catch me and “baptize” me. They grabbed my hands and feet and forced me deeper into the water. I swallowed a few mouthfuls, but after that, I don't know how, miraculously, I started to hit the water hard with my hands and feet and so I moved away from those boys who now looked at me in amazement. It was a useful lesson, because after that I was not afraid of water at all.
- Florin C. Ciobica
This urban creek is the center of my universe. To be in its presence is to be aware of the changing seasons, to feel and to hear the passage of time: fish splashing among the rocks as they move upstream to spawn each spring, the annual return of the King Fisher and the Great Blue Heron, and the sighting of downy-feathered ducklings, a lumbering raccoon, or a water snake hidden among the muddy grasses. It is the near trickle of a rainless summer and the rush following a torrential cloudburst, the drift of red-yellow apples escaping from upstream orchards in the fall, the formation of gray ice in the winter, and the thundering ice flows as temperatures once again moderate toward spring. Here, the creek mimics the sound of rain when it is not raining, and waves, though we are far from the sea. It’s the place where children find joy throwing stones — kerplop! — and launching Poohsticks. It is here where friends and lovers and strangers gather to admire the beauty of the place. To linger. To cherish. This creek is my home. It flows through my heart more strongly than blood. It is part of me.
- Jim Mazza
“It’s just around the corner, I’m sure. I hear it already.” With a sigh, my husband pushed his walking stick onto the path and propelled himself forward. The winding rocky uphill path proved more difficult than indicated by the park poster at the trailhead. I scampered ahead. Waterfalls have fascinated me since seeing my first picture of Niagara Falls. Power and peacefulness all in one attraction. “Here it is!” I saw it first as we rounded one more stand of mountain laurel. My husband rewarded me with a hug. We stood and watched water cascade over a ledge and fall freely down into a pool below, sending up a fine mist. Power unleashed, running free, then captured below, where after its first furious churnings, it flowed softly out into the woods. We descended along the other trail, where we could keep the water in sight. At bottom, just beyond the pool, on large rocks by that stream, we set up our picnic, looking back at the falls, and enjoyed the stream’s rainbows sparkling in the dappled sunlight that filtered down through the trees.
- Joan Leotta
A song by REM reminds me of how much I love to go night swimming and how much I love the conflicting feelings it gives me. On the one hand, I feel such freedom . . . weightless and fluid, a ballet dancer like the one I imagine but can never be on land. On the other hand, though, I am terrified. What kind of dark evil could possibly reach up from the depths, drag me under and devour me alive as I gasp for the air that isn’t there? The fear enhances the pleasure . . . a little innocent, platonic S&M between my superwoman and my scaredy-cat selves.
- Judy Cogan
It was the sound of water we craved that winter in the frozen northeast coast of our lives. So we put our two little children into the back seat of a VW bug, with books, favorite toys, art pads, and colored pens between them, and we drove west — following the streams and rivers as they flowed, winding through new territory in search of a home where we could hear water sing the rapids through deep woods and open land. Lured by each waterfall, we stoped and gazed and listened, not knowing where we were going or how it would end — immersed in the rush and flow. Even the meandering soothed us. We were looking for home and we kept going, cheerfully, hoping we would know it when we heard it. One night we all fell asleep in a fog and woke in a cloud — ventured out to discover we had reached the other side — the great roar of the Pacific Ocean! We had camped on the edge . . . and we lived here happily ever after.
- Kath Abela Wilson
A kitchen sink filled with warm water, a soft towel on the drainboard, and in the water, a round-tummied baby. It’s bath time and we give the babies, each in their turn, measuring cups for dipping and pouring, while we suds their hair with Johnson’s No Tears Baby Shampoo. Soon —too soon — the babies are bathing in the tub, where they learn to scrub those not-so-round tummies and shampoo themselves, sometimes fashioning their hair into soapy sculptures. (The unicorn is a favorite.) But as Mom, I still get to enfold them in a towel and hold them, pretending it’s only to help them dry. Many years later, they encounter water in a different way as Hurricane Sandy drives water from New York Bay up Van Brunt Street onto Pioneer Street and into the building where my sons, now grown, live. In moments, the water changes from a trickle to a torrent, rushing down into the basement apartment, bending the heavy door in half and smashing everything inside against the back wall — the new furniture, cherished record and photo collections, the bowls and mugs, the soft towels, folded neatly. Our sons escape, running through the dark streets of Brooklyn in surging, thigh-deep water, urging their two dogs onward to where the car is parked on higher ground. When they call to tell us they’re safe but also what has been lost, our hearts leap and break. And my eyes fill with tears.
- Kathleen Kramer
I would have spoken suburb, growing up on Continental Drive, a little orchard in the back yard, Twelve Corners Middle School. But my parents were too restless for that, and one Sunday they took a three-hour drive north to look at a lake from a newspaper ad; then they quit their jobs and moved there. I was three months old. So I spoke water instead, and quartz sand, and boat. Each fall the lakeblue would deepen, and muskrats and minks foraged for clams in plain view, with the seasonal people gone. Winters, the cold hard freeze set into the bay. The islands had been vacated, and the ice pulled them closer to us; now they sat in walking distance. Meanwhile, fish still conducted their business near the mucky bottom. In the less-brutal air of spring, the ice became a huge drumskin playing its own funeral song, like a local bomb, like the deepest loud gong, letting go. Freed, the lake climbed stone steps to the underbellies of cabins that stood on stilts for this reason. The summer lake, of course, receded rippling or raging into its basin — the few warm months we had, before it spoke its winter tongue again.
- Laurinda Lind
It was all about the minnows. I abandoned my sandwich on our blanket mid-picnic and followed the grass to a short wall rimming the lake. A fallen willow branch, thin like my father’s bamboo fly rod he liked to whip in the backyard, lay at my feet. I used to chase his small yellow training weights flickering in the grass after each cast. The lake that afternoon seemed full of those pale darting fish and I just knew my rod could catch them. By the third stroke of my imagination I’d lost my balance and tumbled into the water, losing the willow and a shoe. The next summer my father gave me a short fly rod for my eighth birthday and a few backyard casting lessons from his end of the line.
- Lorraine A Padden
Standing on the hump, barely able to see over the seat back, I peer between Mama and Daddy’s heads, waiting, knowing I will see it soon. They told me I have seen it before but I was too little to remember. I see the top of a carousel. Exciting for a three-year old, but not it. Daddy says I will be able to see it over the next small rise in the road. Then, between the dunes, sparkling in the sunlight, there it is — turquoise trimmed in white. Sixty-seven years later and at every first glimpse of the ocean I am three again, seeing it for the first time. No matter its mood or how often I see it, still in love.
- Margaret Walker
I’m in my mid-twenties, sad and unmoored, but less sad having left the east for California. My current boyfriend takes me to the Yosemite Valley. He, his brothers, and some friends, spend the days bouldering and talking about when they scaled El Capitan. I’m unathletic, and my body is disabled from a bout of swine flu — with surgery and long hospitalization — just a few years before. I don’t even really like camping, but am content to sit in the shade of a great rock and read. We go to admire the historic lodge, the Ahwahnee Hotel. A cool blue swimming pool sits in the middle of the outdoor dining room. “Let’s jump in,” someone suggests. That’s all I need, as I love water so much. I strip, leave my clothes in a pile, and leap in, as do all the guys. In a fast minute, security guards with walkie-talkies chase us off. I grab my clothes, and quickly get dressed. The refreshing water changes everything. I’m no longer a nerd, low-status, unable to climb. I’m bold and fearless, naked and fun. I’ll never see any of these guys again — and the boyfriend and I will part ways soon enough. However, I have impressed the group with my transformation into a water nymph. And there is one person who will remain impressed. Me.
- Miriam Sagan
I didn’t start out planning to be a thief but it happened on my 1977 boat trip. A 22 foot sailboat allows only sponge baths using a pot of water heated on the kerosene stove. You can stay reasonably clean but not like in a cascading, warm shower. Overnights at a marina were only when the laundry piled up too high to easily row it in and the galley needed a major restocking. Over and over, on short stops for gas and water, I offered to pay for a shower. Every single marina owner lifted his or her nose in disdain and said no. I planned the next step carefully. Most marinas had their shower facilities in with the toilets, which they would let you use. I began to pack clean underpants, shampoo, soap, and a small towel in a tote bag on these stops and managed to take a shower within three or four minutes. A record, I’m sure. With my wet hair tucked into my sailing hat and clean underpants on my bottom, I nonchalantly strolled back to the dock. Once on board I changed my tee shirt and let the sun and fresh air in the cockpit dry my squeaky-clean hair. A sailing couple I traveled with from time to time laughingly dubbed me “the shower thief.” The name stuck.
- Pris Campbell
Looking back at early childhood, my behavior bordered on juvenile delinquency. Mom insisted on tests to convince teachers advanced classes would challenge a bored and restless mind, and they did. But the supercharged body had a mind and wild spirit of its own. Enter swimming lessons, and competition. Butterfly the stroke of choice. A Mark Spitz poster in the closet. The races became a contest between water and muscles slapping and pulling and thrusting. But then a magical rhythm came together. A dissolution of duality, a melting of muscle and water in a tireless trance, like the harmony of a dolphin breaching the surface for a breath on a straight and purposeful path.
- Richard L. Matta
I grabbed a seasonal gig in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with up-close views of Lake Superior. This is how I repatriated from a far-flung Greek island to the land of my birth. The job ad mentioned bunkhouse accommodations for summer workers. We temp employees only had to show up with sheets and towels. I was adamant about my Greek exit plan. It seemed solid. I booked a one-way ticket (Karpathos-Athens-Istanbul-Chicago-Marquette) and filled my suitcase with hiking boots, active wear, and a set of sheets. My pair of oft-used beach towels would have to double as blankets, and I figured I could probably use a jacket as a pillow. Nothing more would fit in the suitcase. I shared a large, fully-furnished house with eight college interns. During that memorable summer of 2012, a few of them turned 21. I turned 60. There was cake. Our work pace was brisk. Ready to hike, swim, or camp, outdoor enthusiasts showed up in campers, buses, cars, and motorcycles. I loved it, even though Lake Superior felt icy compared to the Aegean Sea. To me, it was worth it not to be worried about jellyfish ever again.
- Roberta Beach Jacobson
Above me was the silver sheen of the water’s surface. Trapping my ankle against the side of the large rubber raft was a heavy cooler. I struggled to free my leg. That silver sheen felt frighteningly far above me. I gave one more huge wrenching kick — up to air! Gasping, my head above the surface of eastern Oregon’s John Day River, the water rushed me downstream. Joy — Mike’s white head bobbing ahead of me in the white water! Very long moments later, four of us scrambled up the riverbank. Yesterday rafting had been prohibited because of flood water. Today Mike and I had waited until the other rafts with twenty of our friends and cousins were safely launched, then cockily took the oars. We had done this so many times but never in such fast water! Around the bend and not enough time to steer the raft through the arch of the bridge. It snagged a tree rammed up against the bridge and flipped. Safe in the sagebrush my lower leg was numb and multicolored, but I felt euphoric. We were all alive! And the silver sheen of the river — below us now — still beckoned.
- Ruth Yarrow
Oh, how I hate plumbing. But I know that it's necessary, and I do appreciate the plumbers who have worked on the old fixtures, faucets and such in my apartment, then my house, to stop leaks, clear drains, undo mistakes . . . . Today, the bathroom sink backed up. Completely. No amount of plunging or poking around in the trap could unclog it. The test will come tomorrow when the plumber takes a long, hard look at the situation. I dread the scene but hope the pipes will be fully cleaned out so I can get on with my life. My plea: water flowing, but only where, when, and how we want it.
- Theresa A. Cancro
When I was three I walked way down back to the creek by myself. Had Mom taken me there once . . . was that how I knew the wonders of water awaiting me? There are Sirens in the sea and Sprites in creeks that call a person beyond reason. What I remember most is my mother calling my name. I was faraway and her voice usually soft was loud with fear but I didn’t emerge from the woods right away. I was deliciously alone and hated to give it up but there was a beginning of a conscience in me which finally sent me up the hill in sight of the adults searching for me and the beginning of a secret life too when I pretended to have “wandered off” and set me off on a life full of wandering.
- Tina Wright
My sister and I are missing summer camp, but it is still only October. In the back of our bedroom closet is a cardboard box with the word CAMP written on the side in black magic marker. We are not supposed to open that box. We open that box. It’s Sunday morning, early, our parents are still sleeping in the next room. We don’t make a sound as we pull out our bathing suits and put them on over our pajamas. It’s not easy, but we do it. Then we sit down in the middle of our bedroom, on the hard cold wooden floor, and imagine we are in two row boats, in the middle of the lake, at our sleep-away camp in Bear Mountain. We sing, very softly: “Row Row Row Your Boat.” We sing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore.” We sing “Deep Blue Sea, Willie, Deep Blue Sea.” “Try not to cry,” I tell Laura, because she always cries when we get to the part “it was Willie what got drownded in the deep blue sea.” Later, when we’re back in our beds, sitting cross-legged the way we sit in camp, my sister asks me to braid her hair and I do, even though it is pixie-short. She asks if we’ll roast marshmallows at the cookout that night. I assure her that we will. Because everything is possible — before our parents wake up.
- Zee Zahava
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