Water Water Everywhere

Karen Blixen, whose pen name was Isak Dineson, wrote Out of Africa.    She said, " The cure for anything is salt water, either sweat or tears or the sea."  Roger that. 

My earliest happy memories are surrounded by the water of Long Island Sound at Black Point or at the Atlantic ocean near the great auntie's cottages (Mercedes, Florence, and Peg) on Long Beach Island, NJ. 

Whenever I smell the scent of brine, I am 7 again with a sunburned nose.   I hear Taffy padding on dog feet across the kitchen floor, and see Kit's old wringer washer in the out building.  We used the roller to squidge the water from our bathing suits and hung them on the clothesline strung above the picnic table to dry completely. 

So it is no accident that I still live surrounded by water in Hampton Roads, Virginia...either the brackish Elizabeth River (which is actually a tidal estuary like the Hudson near New York City) or the Atlantic Ocean or the Chesapeake Bay at Fort Monroe.

My neighborhood is a peninsula surrounded by water which teems with life; fish, crabs, green herons, and this egret above foraging for lunch.

During my most troubled times, I am drawn towards contemplation along the water.  I am always renewed by it.  We are first created within water.  I think we want to return to it over and over. 

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.     Psalm 29:2-4