MONTHLY CHALLENGE

You will Find me Where Earth meets Water

There is no life without water

Do you see the picture above? Hundreds of containers on a ship, sailing through the middle of the ocean, carrying someone’s belongings to them. A water taxi for transporting goods from one country to another.

I spent many summers as a child with this view from the ship's upper decks. I watched closely as the containers would be off-loaded from the ship and reloaded with new ones at every port using cranes. The longer it took to offload the cargo, the longer we stayed at that port of call.

If it was an interesting port of call AND there were no issues with getting a visa, then that was a good reason to step out and explore the city for the day.

Otherwise, running up and down decks, from the stern to the bull, climbing ladders, going to the engine room to check in on dad at work, watching dolphins in the open seas, playing ping-pong with my brother and any crew member available, or playing board games all added up to the way I spent my summers.

Swim/ Life Lesson#1

There was a small swimming pool on the ship. We had to open up the valves to let the seawater in to fill the pool and when done we would drain the water out. I didn’t even know how to swim, but I wore floaties and jumped right in. My mother didn’t know how to swim and my father was busy at work, so we had to wait until another crew member was around to supervise.

One day my brother and I decided to do this on our own with our mother supervising us. We opened up the valve and the pool started to fill with water. Typically, we would be able to stand as the water level would slowly rise up. But on this particular day, we were going through some rough seas. As the ship was rolling from side to side, the water was splashing us around from one side of the pool to the other. Although the water was up to our knees we were being knocked down. My mother ran to get some help and the few minutes it took to get a crewmember to close the valves and pull us out seemed like a lifetime.

We survived that incident but learned to NEVER AGAIN get in an empty pool while it’s filling up in the middle of an ocean in rough seas! It’s better to wait until the water is filled to the top. The rolling or pitching of the ship wouldn’t displace the water as much as it would in an emptier pool.

Lots of physics lessons at a very young age! Phew!

Swim/Life Lesson#2

Learning to swim was a necessity for us. When my father was home on leave, he enrolled me in swim lessons one summer when I was 10 years old. It was one of those “Learn to Swim in 10 Days” camps. I was and still am a super fast learner.

The swim coach was surprised at how quickly I learned to swim. On the last day of swim camp, as a way of showing someone the right technique, I was asked to swim the breadth of the pool. The enthusiastic child I was, I obliged and swam the breadth.

I completely misjudged where the ledge of the pool was and stopped 2–3 feet before the edge of the pool. I was in the deep end and didn’t realize what I needed to do to just propel forward. I was drowning. I could see my father in my peripheral vision and he realized almost the same time as the coach that I was struggling. I had to be pulled out of the pool.

I was scared and scarred from that incident. I didn’t swim for a couple of years after. When I did go back a few years later, the bottom of the pool had the image of mermaids and fish. I was petrified to swim. I loved the water and I wanted to be in it. I had to overcome my fear and slowly worked my way back up to swimming without fear.

I realized that the inner draw to be near and in water was greater than the fear that was preventing me from being near or in water.

My Happy Place

I can sit by a stream of water listening to the sound of water trickling down for hours together. I can sail for days, weeks, or months on the water. Being by the water is my happy place.

I have a tug and a pull relationship with water. My zodiac element is earth. I feel grounded when I am on land. But I feel a deep draw and a connection to be with water. In a recent reading by Dawn Smiles, she mentioned something about being carried away in a flood and drowning as part of my past life. Maybe that explains the tug and pull feeling.

I was born to a man who sailed the seven seas. His ashes were laid to rest in the Bay of Bengal. I make it a point to dip my feet in any ocean during my travels as a way of saying hello to my father.

My best travel moments have had something to do with water — be it cruising the Caribbean, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, white-water rating in level 4 rapids, or just chilling in a water villa in the Maldives.

My relationship with water is incomprehensible yet special. I grew up by the ocean, I live close to a river, and I envision a future by the ocean. There is no life without water!

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but the one thing I know is that you will find me in a place where earth meets water.

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