Notes from a Lover of Water

Guest writer: Gary Kimmel

“Water, moving or still, has healing powers we cannot understand.”

—Joanna Seibert in Daily Something, 21 January 2021.

Joanna, as often happens, a single sentence becomes an AH-HA moment. This one from a recent Daily Something was one of those.

I remarked to a friend the other day: "I never want to live anywhere that I’m not on or near water.” For the first six decades of my life, I didn’t live on water. In the last decade-plus I have. And I’ve come to experience the very thing that Joanna speaks of. The healing, nurturing power of water, “moving or still.”

To wake in the morning and look out on a perfectly still, fog-shrouded mirror of water gives pause. It is among my wife’s favorite glimpses of nature. To watch as the sun warms it and it begins to move and come to life speaks to the cycle of the day.

To sit on our dock with a G&T and share with each other our thoughts, something we are often too “busy” to do the rest of the day, brings us closer.

Even watching how angry the water can become when a storm passes can hint at the power of nature and provide that humbling nudge that I often need—the one that reminds me I’m not in control.

I’m a scientist and like to be able to explain things. But the pull of water on a part of me that is deeper than I can explain is always a wonder to me, and I hope it will remain so for a long time.

Gary Kimmel