Project Positivity #3: Water.

This entry may seem a little more abstract than my previous ones in this project, but please allow me to elaborate. Water is something that has a very positive effect on my life and experiences.

For a start, life as we know it could not exist at all on this tiny planet without water. Earth would be just another deserted rock taking up a relatively minuscule corner of the galaxy. As a result of water being present (and taking up two thirds of the world's surface) life was able to evolve from single celled organisms into the complexity and variety that enraptures so many people today.

Additionally, humans depend on water in order to survive (just like all other living things). We drink it to stay hydrated and our bodies are made up of roughly 60% water. In any conceivable way, life and humanity could not and would not exist without it.

Getting away from the obvious, and trying to personalize this more (that is the point of this project after all), water has symbolically been a major part of my life. I learned to swim at a very young age. I have always been grateful for that, as I have found comfort in water. It doesn't matter too much to me if it is a swimming pool or an ocean. I love to be in and around water.

The parts of the summer vacations I was taken on as a child that I looked forward to the most were the swimming and the ferry journey. The ferry was always very exciting to me. I would always go outside and watch the waves crash against the side of the ship. The feeling of being on the water was something I thoroughly enjoyed. I do not recall ever getting seasick. I suppose it is possible that I did but I have no memory of it.

Away from the vacations, just everyday life put me near to the water. For the first eighteen years of my life I lived walking distance from one of the biggest estuaries in the country and not too far away from the coast. My grandmother lived (and still does live) in the seaside town of Felixstowe. Every time we visited we would walk along the seafront and watch the waves, big and small, crash against the beach.

Felixstowe

Then I went to university. To Aberystwyth. A town on the exact opposite side of the British island to Felixstowe, yet something about it felt very familiar: the sea. It was a totally different body of water I gazed out upon in Aber and the waves were generally much bigger yet the effect it had on me was exactly the same. An odd mixture of excitement and calm. Something about the sight, smell and sound of the waves crashing on the shore was incredibly soothing. I did not always enjoy being in Aber. In fact, at times I was miserable. The upside was that I had a foolproof method of clearing my head: a walk along the seafront. It never failed. Rain or shine, day or night, if I had a lot on my mind I went for a walk to the seafront and just let my mind empty. It is usually impossible for me to switch my brain off (something that has caused much aggravation in the past and still continues to do so), but being in front of the water manages to do it.

Aberystwyth

I feel drawn to coastal areas. Part of the reason I love New York so much (and Long Island is a particularly good example of this) is its proximity to the water. I think it is no coincidence that while I did not much care for Florida, my favorite parts of the week I spent there were swimming in the hotel pool and swimming in the Gulf of Mexico (before the oil spill, naturally).

I sometimes feel sadness that I live in a place so far from the coasts. I even did my Master's degree in Coventry. There are few places in Britain further away from a coastline. I miss it. I miss swimming. I miss watching the waves in the rain. I love the water. Something so simple, yet complex at the same time. It fills me with such awe.