Solidify, Boil, and Flow

"Down here all the fish is happy, as off to the waves they roll.  The fish on the land ain't happy, they sad 'cause they in the bowl."

- Sebastian in The Little Mermaid

I'm almost certain that I'm only three-fourths human.  

If a mermaid is 1/2 fish and 1/2 human and I am 1/2 mermaid, that makes me 1/4 fish and 3/4 human. My parents like to deny that one of them secretly reproduced with a mermaid (or merman) to create yours truly, but I'm not stupid.  

Just as water makes up about 60% of my body, it'd be fairly accurate to say that water has consumed approximately 60% of my life as well.  If my mermaid theory proves false, then I theorize that I have an absurd affinity to water not because I've been surrounded by it all my life (as a swimmer, lifeguard, and coach), but because we are all natural aquatic-romantics.  We fall in love with water, especially when it suits our mood.  We relish in a perfect swim, a refreshing beverage, a romantic skate on a frozen pond. We also depend on it to survive.  In Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes, "As everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever."  The absence of all worry, the freedom of the mind, and the sublime serenity associated with meditation, in other words, can best be achieved through aquatic means.  

Last time I swam a workout, the pool-water shared some interesting metaphors with me. 

Water, for example, automatically conjures plenty of biblical images when I contemplate its value.  Baptism washes our sins away and we are reborn through Christ.  We are cleansed, and we are forgiven.  Water obviously connotes purity for many of us because liquid water cleanses.  But beyond these typical, powerful connections I usually make with water,  the great deep blue (of the 5 foot pool) revealed to me some truths that I'd never thought of as I invaded its substance with my flawless streamline.    

We like open water, for example, because it makes us feel free.  In his song Wildflowers, Tom Petty tells his lover, "you belong in a boat out at sea.  Sail away, kill off the hours… you belong somewhere you feel free."  Melville's narrator "loves to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." The sheer enormity of the open water captures our intrigue.  Water "whets" our curiosity.  But ultimately, like our inescapable nature, the water we sail on must conform to whatever shape confines it.  Despite its versatility and "freedom," water must ultimately conform to whatever shape contains it.  

Similarly, though we may have the freedom of mind to make meaning for ourselves in life, we  ultimately can't ever escape ideology and circumstance. To put it another way, we exist within time and culture.  We cannot free ourselves of temporality anymore than we can free ourselves of cultural influence, as much as we may try.  Like the unlucky fish in Sebastian's disney tune, we're a bit "sad 'cause we're in the bowl." But this reality isn't sad unless we let it be.  Faith and criticality invigorate the fish bowl.   

On a lighter note, swimming is a weird sport.  Demetri Martin jokes, "To me swimming is a confusing sport.  Sometimes you do it for fun, but other times you do it to not die.  When I'm swimming sometimes I don't know which one it is. I gotta go by the outfit. Pants: uh oh.  Bathing suit: okay.  Naked:  we'll see."

But I really value teaching people to swim, whether I'm teaching them to use proper stroke technique in the water or just teaching them to not die when they land in it.  I believe in the water's ability to wash away inability and insecurity and to soak us, in place of these things, with self-reliance. 

Ben Franklin famously advocated for the autonomy with which water "refreshes" us.  Did you know Franklin was the only founding father in the swimming hall of fame?  He taught himself to swim in an age when swimming wasn't prevalent because he valued self-reliance and physical activity.  When I heard he was the first political figure to suggest that everybody should learn how to swim, I wanted to fist-pump him.  

Learning to swim means that we can remain "afloat" through adversity.  It means we don't sink.   It means we tread through turbulent waters and keep our heads above the surface when all we feel like doing is drowning.  

Water can solidify, boil, and flow.  It can toughen us, boil away fears and insecurities, and cleanse.  

Water whets our appetites for life.