Feel the Water

My skin isn’t only skin – it is also translucent dentine scales. My skin is how I breathe and how I wear my color, wet and shimmering in this deep river. My skin protects me as yours does you, but it also carries my stories and my history, my family of origin.

I don’t know you or your world. I’ve never spent a day on land. I don’t know how your move or why, and frankly I don’t care. I listen only to the rhythms of my wide quiet pool in this river. I am sleek and long with silvery pink, green, and brown. I am hard to catch and much harder to predict. You can try to outsmart me or trick me, but you will always fail. I know your motives and they are not mine.

I am confused by your god and the meaning you place on possessions, whatever that is. My god is this river – the highs and lows of her current and the changes in temperature that her seasons bring. I hide in full sun and I dance in the rain – the drops beating out a song that only I can hear. I hold mysteries you can never imagine.

I am at once nurturing and flippant – coaxing wisdom from my children’s intuition but not at all bothered when they swim to another pool up stream. I see their gills heaving with the effort they think is needed and I hope that one day they will see that all they need to do is float.

Floating is such an underrated passion. More people would benefit from a good float from time to time. But you’ve too much on your agenda, too many demands to slow down and fit in a little float.

Let’s be clear, I do make splashes. I am not afraid of churning up the water around me or racing at top speed to break the surface of this river. I leap, unafraid of where I will land. There is a moment of bliss during this flight. Freedom and perspective. It is the big finale of the dance I do each day. Isn’t it beautiful?

I rely on the glory of nature to feed and strengthen my long body and supple fins. I know that each morning nature will provide and I will fill my belly full of whatever she offers. I don’t have to toil or scheme like you do. I just surrender to the river’s timing and dance with the little bugs who play at her surface.

There is much sweetness in these waters…in my pool…in my body. You’d learn a lot if you stopped to open your eyes for a while and look beyond your own reflection. Perhaps the magic simply exists is seeing me for more than you might recognize – for more than my label – more than my station. Maybe you could see yourself in me and finally be free.