Ripples

I love water, the way it moves, looks, feels, and adapts to whatever contains it...

As many hours as I have spent watching water move, I have spent watching its calm surface reflect everything hovering above it.

I enjoy watching the birds skim its surface, looking for fish or cooling their wings. I like looking through its freshness, curious to discover the sand, rocks and life which lay beneath.

What I like best of all though is the movement formed when elements, such as these two send ripples out farther than my eye can know.

For me, the ripples are reflective of life and how the smallest, least significant-seeming decisions echo forth. Ripples are soft and gentle. They are noticeable yet they neither detain nor disturb us. They may even enhance our enjoyment of the water.

Other ripples, we call waves. Waves are big and loud. They can be seen coming a mile away. The can make us leap with joy or make us panic. They can rock, tip, deafen and sometimes engulf us. Waves change us. They leave us wet, staggering, they can turn us wrong side up, can obscure the light. In the midst of a wave, we lose sight of everyone and everything around us, making it appear as though we are alone. Waves change our perception, our orientation and most often, they carry us back to a place we had already journeyed past, causing us to travel through territory we thought we had already conquered. Some of us seek them, their energy and excitement...

Whether ripples or waves, no creature can move through water without creating a disturbance... not the smallest bug and not the best swimmer.

The same is true of life. No matter what you do or how hard you try, you will not make it to the other side of it unnoticed. You do not have to be a wave-maker. Ripplers will be seen, will be loved, will make a difference to someone just as these two made a difference to me.

Wishing

I was standing here in Prince Edward Island looking at the water and wishing people were more like it.  Wishing I could look at them and see past any shit on the surface right down deep inside of them to all the life they wish they could hide. Wishing I could know if the waves on their surface are the only momentum they have or if they only exist to distract me from what's going on underneath. Wishing that a simple glance could tell me how shallow or deep they are.

I wish people could look at me and see who I am rather than get distracted by all the bullshit that's going on inside their own heads; wish it didn't make it impossible for them to see me clearly.

Some people look at water and they want it to be clear, revealing. Some people are disappointed when they look and don't see a reflection of themselves.

When water is dark, dirty or murky most of us turn away disinterested, disgusted by what we cannot know. We do not want to linger on the shore or lounge on the beach hoping the smell dissipates and the water clears. Not so with people. With people we assume mystery, we want to wade into their funk so we can work at finding out what's underneath.

Admittedly, sometimes a short vigil is warranted. A storm may have just passed. The water may simply need time to resettle.

Underneath all water seen and unseen, lays a bottom littered with debris and/or laden with treasure. Whether beautiful or parasitic, there is also some form of life.

What does water make you wish for?

Profound Happiness

This is November? It's a beautiful way for the month to begin - weather wise. Even though my partner was fighting off some sort of bug, we packed up the four kids we had at home and travelled to explore a local park.

When we arrived at Jack Darling we - according to our personality - skipped, walked and ambled along the path. A path which changed from cinder to wooden planks to asphalt as it wound through trees and over or around the water.

All the while, to the left Lake Ontario beckoned with its rushing waves and strip of beach.

Though we made it past the first playground, our seven year old made sure we didn't make it past the second by breaking free from our small pack and rushing toward it. One by one the other kids followed, until we were left to enjoy a moment of quiet aloneness on the path - well as quiet and alone as two people can be standing 5 feet from a playground infested with kids while other walkers pass by (bliss).

After an hour or so we have walked all of the path that we want. Some of us have crawled across the massive felled trees while others still have been brave enough to climb along the three foot high railings which enclose the wooden path.

Exhausted of our desire to walk, we meander to the shore where, as if repelled, we spread to skip rocks, skitter across boulders or in my case fully lay down on the asphalt outcropping where I watch the birds soar through my line of vision in the cloud sprinkled sky.

After a few moments, I sit up and look across the water to marvel at its expanse and its movement on this beautifully mild Autumn day.

I don't know why the water does what it does to me; why it makes me feel alive yet also at peace. I don't know why the sound and the sight start me to rejoicing inside to the point where at times fills my heart to overflowing from my eyes. I don't know why it's easier to breathe or why I want to draw its scent deeply so as to fill myself with the experience as much as I possibly can. I don't know why.

As my partner comes to lay his head in my lap the peacefulness and the joy of the moment coarse through to touch me and I don't care why. I am just profoundly happy.