A baby is 78% water. A man’s body is about 60% water and a woman’s about 55% - more fatty tissue! A fat man has a smaller percentage of water in his body than a thin man. About 83% of our blood is water. 70% of our brains are water! Every day human beings must replace around 2.4 litres of water. Water is crucial to the human race. We’re full of it. We need it to live.
We never seem to have the right quantity of water. Half the world suffers from a shortage of it. On the other hand, many places in the world suffer from a terrifying surfeit: floods, tidal waves, avalanches. Either way, problems with water bring disaster in their wake. The rest of us, unthreatened by disaster and more blessed than the rest, just complain anyway!
“It’s raining (again)” we moan. That grey, dreary, inconvenient wet stuff keeps on pouring down out of a dark, cloud-filled sky that looks as if it will never clear. Water features strongly in my life. It always has. One of my earliest childhood memories concerns being bored on a rainy day. (I still have a very low threshold for boredom!) I remember as a small child, standing on the red tiled floor in our kitchen, aimlessly staring out of the window. While my mother busied herself with the household chores, I watched the raindrops settling on the windowpane, dripping down and down, collecting in little rivulets, joining and dividing and forming intricate patterns on the glass. It seemed like time stood still and it would carry on raining forever. I just wanted to go out to play. The weather still affects me strongly and I am at the mercy of conflicting emotions, dependent on the sunshine or the rain, the azure blue skies or the depressing grey.
I love to live near the sea. Growing up in London, I never dreamed that the sea could be for every day. The excitement of the approach to the seaside, the first glorious view of the distant sea, the taste of salt on my lips was, for me, reserved for those special holiday times. When, soon after our marriage, we first moved to the seaside to live high on a hill above Brighton, I was captivated. When I hung out the washing in the little yard at the back of our terraced house, sniffed the salty air and listened to the raucous seagulls screaming overhead I was hooked. Never again could I live far from the sea. It was a part of me and a part of my ‘everyday’. I had fallen in love.
Ever since, in all my travels, I have stayed close to the sea. Ten years on the Isle of Wight, that tiny diamond-shaped isle off the south coast of England, sealed my fate as a seaside addict. Years later, living on the mainland of Europe, I have stayed close to my beloved seaside. Whether it sparkles blue with gentle, cream-tinged wavelets, or boils ferociously with storm-driven grey/green rollers, I love it and am a prisoner to its charms.
If I can’t have the sea, give me a broad, deep river. Let me sit by the Rhine and watch the heavy barges pounding up and down the waterways. Or let me stroll beside a bubbling brook, a meandering stream, a muddy estuary, full of the sounds of curlews and oyster catchers. But give me water!
Without waterways to charm me, seaside to lift my spirits or a brook to cheer me I dwindle and fade. I pine. I shed a few salty tears when I left the island all those years ago. I shed a few more nowadays when I think of the quaint country villages and windswept seashores I have left in order to take up residence in a strange city in a foreign land. My city home is still close to the sea, but this seaside is lined with concrete, Casinos and commerce. The seaside I crave is one of cliffs, rock pools, sea pinks and the cries of gulls. My tears remind me once more of the watery element that plays such an important role in my life and in all our lives. We all cry our share of tears. It makes us human. It binds us together in our common humanity and reminds us of what is important to us.
Water makes me cry. Water makes me smile. Water brings disaster. Water keeps me alive. As important as the air we breathe, water is a crucial element of our lives. Another rainy day comes and goes. Like it or not (and I don’t!), we cannot live without it. H2O – simple, yet profound.
We never seem to have the right quantity of water. Half the world suffers from a shortage of it. On the other hand, many places in the world suffer from a terrifying surfeit: floods, tidal waves, avalanches. Either way, problems with water bring disaster in their wake. The rest of us, unthreatened by disaster and more blessed than the rest, just complain anyway!
“It’s raining (again)” we moan. That grey, dreary, inconvenient wet stuff keeps on pouring down out of a dark, cloud-filled sky that looks as if it will never clear. Water features strongly in my life. It always has. One of my earliest childhood memories concerns being bored on a rainy day. (I still have a very low threshold for boredom!) I remember as a small child, standing on the red tiled floor in our kitchen, aimlessly staring out of the window. While my mother busied herself with the household chores, I watched the raindrops settling on the windowpane, dripping down and down, collecting in little rivulets, joining and dividing and forming intricate patterns on the glass. It seemed like time stood still and it would carry on raining forever. I just wanted to go out to play. The weather still affects me strongly and I am at the mercy of conflicting emotions, dependent on the sunshine or the rain, the azure blue skies or the depressing grey.
I love to live near the sea. Growing up in London, I never dreamed that the sea could be for every day. The excitement of the approach to the seaside, the first glorious view of the distant sea, the taste of salt on my lips was, for me, reserved for those special holiday times. When, soon after our marriage, we first moved to the seaside to live high on a hill above Brighton, I was captivated. When I hung out the washing in the little yard at the back of our terraced house, sniffed the salty air and listened to the raucous seagulls screaming overhead I was hooked. Never again could I live far from the sea. It was a part of me and a part of my ‘everyday’. I had fallen in love.
Ever since, in all my travels, I have stayed close to the sea. Ten years on the Isle of Wight, that tiny diamond-shaped isle off the south coast of England, sealed my fate as a seaside addict. Years later, living on the mainland of Europe, I have stayed close to my beloved seaside. Whether it sparkles blue with gentle, cream-tinged wavelets, or boils ferociously with storm-driven grey/green rollers, I love it and am a prisoner to its charms.
If I can’t have the sea, give me a broad, deep river. Let me sit by the Rhine and watch the heavy barges pounding up and down the waterways. Or let me stroll beside a bubbling brook, a meandering stream, a muddy estuary, full of the sounds of curlews and oyster catchers. But give me water!
Without waterways to charm me, seaside to lift my spirits or a brook to cheer me I dwindle and fade. I pine. I shed a few salty tears when I left the island all those years ago. I shed a few more nowadays when I think of the quaint country villages and windswept seashores I have left in order to take up residence in a strange city in a foreign land. My city home is still close to the sea, but this seaside is lined with concrete, Casinos and commerce. The seaside I crave is one of cliffs, rock pools, sea pinks and the cries of gulls. My tears remind me once more of the watery element that plays such an important role in my life and in all our lives. We all cry our share of tears. It makes us human. It binds us together in our common humanity and reminds us of what is important to us.
Water makes me cry. Water makes me smile. Water brings disaster. Water keeps me alive. As important as the air we breathe, water is a crucial element of our lives. Another rainy day comes and goes. Like it or not (and I don’t!), we cannot live without it. H2O – simple, yet profound.
1 comment:
My youngest told me this morning that it had to rain soon or else all the plants outside would die! It helps me to put all the rainy days in Holland into perspective. The kids don't seem too bothered by it; perhaps, I can learn from them! Nice post.
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