Natural Disclosures

A weekend at a cottage, somewhere out there, maybe a little island. I let my mind drift a bit over the water. This is where I forge my thoughts in my mother’s language, where water is a prominent figure in the female gender.

​Since she is in me, in my head more than anywhere else, there is no way out. It is like a lover for life. Running away is not an option; ignoring her? Well, you know how it goes.

People used to say: “water is life,” and worshiped her for the life nursing quality. Her life-threatening ferocity is harder to understand. She easily gets carried away soaking up the sun. Then all bets are off. To travel far, people had to learn throughout their lifetimes how to read her face to see what was coming. Let me tell you, it’s hard. Her face can reveal as much as it can hide.

She is the master of disguise. You can’t see if she is a bit enjoyed or just angry. Whatever is brewing inside of her seldom comes to the surface. Zillions of small storms that no one would ever see could boil under the skin. Their devastating fury spills over everything around them until they steam all out.

I can see a range of her emotions everywhere, in the softness of sculptured light or on surfaces of the hardest rocks.

I used to follow her blindly while scouting wild northern rivers. With a paddle in my hand, I could feel her vibrations over the rippled riverbeds, her excitement at the top of the rapids, and her trepidation approaching eddies. We were connected, jumping over the waterfalls together, and I could understand her, my most trusted lover.   

It’s different now. Like the music has changed. I wouldn’t trust her face before the wide lake crossing.

I can’t even tell you what is happening inside my head.

​Sidelined, like everything else, a passive bystander, paralyzed by newfound understanding.