My relationship with water

There are thousands of lakes, and rivers and creeks in our country. Last summer, the icy chill of Lake Huron numbed my feet. It was July, but after the coldest winter in a hundred years, the water pierced my skin like shards of glass, my bones ached instantly and I retreated to the sand to watch the sun set and my son and nephew skip stones over the water, which was still and grey. The summer before, I coasted with my family on rolling, gentle waves on the green Ottawa river, jumping out of a raft to be carried on a current; gravity, for a moment, irrelevant. Last winter, we walked across the frozen Skootamatta and built a fire. It was warm enough to remove our coats, to hang our mittens on a tree, yet the ice was solid and snow crystals sparkled in the sun. With my daughter, I snowshoed patterns in the unmarked patches of the whitest snow: a flower, the sun, H-E-L-L-O.
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There are seas here, too, but because I don't see them, sometimes I forget they are also ours. They are cold, and feisty. They are overbearing, and dangerous. They provide livelihoods but they also take lives. Our seas are not merciful. The seas I love are warm, and blue. The waves roll out on sandy beaches or--even better--on rugged rocks. I like to feel stone beneath my feet, slippery with a soft film of seaweed or firm with jagged edges. Standing on the rocks, I am grounded to the shore and I stand on the edge of the earth's shelf, the waves crashing around me. The water neither knows nor acknowledges me.

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I sometimes fear emotional depths. I don't like to hear raised voices. I don't crave the adrenaline that comes from excitement or fear. But I feel emotions deeply: I experience love like a wave or a waterfall, pain or sadness as though I am sinking.
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I don't fear the depths of water. When I swim, I swim farther and farther. I like to look outward, with the shore behind me.