I Need Water!

I wish I could say that I’m feeling better, but this is day 10 and I’m still light headed and sick to my stomach. I’m eating a BRAT diet-banana, rice, applesauce, and toast. Mainly toast and rice. Drinking ginger ale and ice water.

I think I’ve written before about my love for water. Here in the Pacific Northwest it is plentiful. I’m surrounded by lakes, rivers, streams, and Puget Sound. My family spent one month every summer camping and swimming. Then my Dad made a canoe and we paddled and fished on the lakes.

My Dad had been in the navy briefly and taught us all to swim. I think I was a fish in a past life. I come alive in the water. After my big brother died while I was in college, I would go to my job as a lifeguard at the college pool and swim a mile before I opened up for free swim. All the tension would leave my body and I could breathe again. I’ve always wanted to live on the water. Maybe some day…

My Dad was also an Episcopal priest. I was baptized as an infant. Baptism is the beginning of a commitment to life as a Christian. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river by John the Baptist. It marked the beginning of Jesus ministry.

Water is cleansing and symbolizes washing away the mistakes up to that point so that we are open to making a new and better life.

Yesterday I took my tense body, filled the tub with hot water and sank into it. The hot water relaxed my muscles instantly.

It was when I sank in and allowed my body to float that relief swept over me. I felt free and released every fear, each barb of hatred and prejudice, the multitude of injustice, needless death, and lack of love. And for that instant I glimpsed hope. As if God reminded me, “I’m still here.”

I wanted to stay there, floating, unencumbered by gravity and life forever. But water cools and I didn’t need to get cold and tense again.

I almost wish I didn’t care so much about people. That I didn’t feel their burdens, physical pain, and fear. But then I wouldn’t be me. And I know that through my life, God has used those gifts for healing and justice for my students and patients.

This experience was a reminder that I can return to the water and find peace, if only for a moment or two and experience a small bit of optimism again.

I trust that you, too, can find one release from the tension and negativity for yourself. That you have a way to let go of the tension held in your muscles and breathe for a minute or two.

It is only together that we can keep up the pressure on our representatives to move forward in ending this nightmare we find ourselves in.