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2005-08-24 - 3:36 p.m.

I love water.
Fresh or salt.
Running or standing.
Shallow or deep.

No, this is not a poem.

I love water. I was that kid (um, still am) you used to see playing in puddles no matter how muddy they were. I'd jump over them, run around them, walk through them, run through them, kick the water to see how far the drops would go and to see them shimmer in the winter sun, be told time and again to stop playing in it. And like the good boy I was, I would obey my mother. (And God forbid if I didn't. No, I wouldn't get a smack but she'd look at me in a certain way and I'd do exactly what she asked.)

So once I'd been told to stop playing in puddles I'd pray for rain. Pray for the weak winter sun to go, although I loved that too. (My love for the sun is another story.) I loved to play in the rain, feel it in my hair, hitting my skin, holding my mouth open so I could feel it on my tongue - never had the chance to do that with snowflakes and thank God for the lack of acid rain. If I could get away with it I'd play in the rain for hours.

Heaven to me was playing in puddles while it was raining. Oh yes!

I also loved it when it rained because I'd have boat races. I'd grab two (or more) twigs or leaves or bits of grass, whatever was close at hand and would float for a while, and put them in the water running down the gutters or any other place where there was moving water, and watch them. I'd watch them till they sank or till they ran out of water or till they went so far I couldn't follow them anymore, then I'd go find some more twigs or leaves or bits of grass and do it again. And again. And again. And again. Till it got dark. The whole time I'd be studying why one was faster than the others: was it because of its shape, its weight, was it in faster flowing water? Why?

I loved to swim; still do. I'd stay in the water for hours, long after my skin went all old-person pruny. I'd swim in the town pool, the river, the lake, dams, irrigation channels, the ocean when we travelled (although being an inland country boy I could never fully trust all that seaweed - just what is that under there, seemingly always grabbing at my ankles?)

I loved sailing, canoeing, kayaking, anything where I could hear the sound of water on the boat. I loved to hear and feel waves crashing against the hull, too, when the wind was blowing hard. I think most of all though, when I was young and supposedly racing my little yacht on those calm days with barely enough wind to sail, I loved to hear the whisper of the water along the wooden hull, hear it sighing to me. It was so much better than a lullaby. I'd nearly fall asleep I'd be so mesmerised. So content. So happy. And then I'd think how I'd have to go to school the next day, how I hated the structure and the forced learning and the bullshit, and how my little heart would sink thinking of it.

So therein lies the lesson: if I had've actually listened to my parents, paid attention at school and not fucked about so much, I may very well actually have a job that I like. See, my maths was rather poor, and who knows, if I had've applied myself more I could've become a naval architect, an hydrologist, an oceanographer; all the jobs I'm interested in (now anyway) involves maths.

Maybe thats why I've always used the reasoning that either you have a brain for subjects relating to maths, or a brain for subjects relating to humanities (maybe apart from music which involves numbers). Some people are lucky enough to have the brain for both.

Yes yes, I realise this is just another one of my excuses for not living up to other people's expectations.

(Oh I'm kidding.)