Flow Like Water — Water and Me
We should be saying “from water to water”
We are all nearly 60% water. Instead of saying “from dust to dust” when someone passes, we should be saying “from water to water”.
Water can caress and calm you or it can crush and kill you. Your relationship with water is critical to who you are. I have always been happiest around water. I was born by a lake. My early years were spent near one of North America’s largest rivers, the Mississippi. At the age of four and for most of the rest of my life I have lived within walking distance of the ocean.
For my ninth Christmas, I got a scuba tank and regulator and learned to scuba dive. That opened up the marvelous underwater world for me.
Before I moved to Zihuatanejo (my current paradise by the sea), I lived a seven-hour drive from the ocean. I was not a happy camper. As soon as I dove into the Pacific Ocean at a beach here, I surfaced laughing like a child and feeling ”This is it. I’m home!”
The sea has taught me many things. I have learned to respect the delicate and beautiful world under the ocean and all the marvelous creatures in it. I have been diving with sharks and barracuda. Sharks, generally don’t scare me, but barracuda can be terrifying.
My first job out of university was as a dive instructor at a hotel on the beach in Puerto Rico. Most mornings the other two dive instructors and I would go spearfishing to find fish to sell to the hotel kitchen. Another diver and I would swim slowly behind the boat until we saw something worth catching. Then we would signal the boat and go after the fish (usually grouper or red snapper). One day, I looked to my left as I cruised along underwater and there was a great barracuda about eight feet long swimming next to me and gnashing his teeth. We were both hunting fish. I quickly signaled the driver of the boat to stop, and we got back in calling it a day. We were not going to compete with that ferocious hunter.
There is nothing more peaceful to me than floating in the calm clear water of La Ropa beach in Zihuatanejo. I can actually go to sleep doing that. Another incident from my early life taught me to respect the power of the ocean as well.
As a teenager, I had been a lifeguard and on a swim team, so I was a strong swimmer. Two friends and I decided to skip school one day and drive around the island of Puerto Rico, looking for spots to body surf. We found one spot with huge waves that had a nice long break, ideal for body surfing.
Being the strongest swimmer, I went farther out to catch the bigger waves. We didn’t see the red flag farther down the beach until later. There was a strong riptide between where I was and where my friends were surfing. The waves were huge and instead of riding them as I had imagined, they were tumbling me as if I were in a washing machine. I would recover from one only to be hit by the next one and pulled under again. I decided to just swim in and join my friends where the smaller waves were but the riptide was preventing me from doing that. I saw my friends on the beach gesturing and screaming, “Come on, you can do it!” I thought to myself they don’t believe I can. I wasn’t sure I could either.
The waves kept tumbling me over and under and with the riptide I was making no headway. At one point I thought I was going to drown. I remember saying a prayer to God to be saved. The next wave instead of tumbling me under again lifted me and carried me past the riptide where I was able to swim to shore.
I learned two things that day. The power of prayer and the power of the ocean. I respect them both now.
When I die, I want my ashes to be spread in the ocean. From water to water.
