Flood tide
when water is everywhere
Yesterday, I felt the kind of elation I only feel when I stand next to this:
I had been frozen up in Porto, with the unrelenting rain and wind. But here, the water was turquoise. The kids hopped waves and chased each other in circles. We were alone on the beach. All I could hear was their laughter and waves crashing. The sun set behind the rocks in my favourite shades of pink and purple. Somehow, it’s been six months since I stood next to the sea. Remind me not to stay away that long again.
About an hour after taking this photo, my mom called to tell me our basement at home was flooded. It had been snowing, melting, then raining, then freezing, until more melting. The sump pump failed. Everything in the basement was sitting in four inches of groundwater. (Here is another opportunity to say thank you to my incredible parents.)
Water is everywhere.
I have a vivid memory of a taxi ride to the airport about five years ago. It was 5am. I can’t remember where I was headed. It was winter and the ground was frozen solid. I wondered… what if the water everywhere—all the molecules of it, in all things—was the same water? All one sea, one being, one song?
I think this letter is about surrender.
Look at the way this unstoppable water rises up and hugs the rock, then floods the shore:
It made me think of this section from The Wild Beneath. My novel has something to say about internal freezing, then surrender to floods… but more to say about inner rejuvenation. About life awakening. I don’t think I’ve fully understood this in my own life, yet — the way the floods that break you can re-make you — but our stories are smarter than us.
Floods arrive and there’s no stopping them. When I woke up this morning, the sunrise was tangerine-coloured. A single boat floated far out in the sea. It had its blinking lights on. I said to my husband Mat: “It’s strange that I was feeling intense joy here with the sea, and then our basement flooded. Why?” The energetics seemed funny. Everything at once. No stopping it. I still sat down this morning at the kitchen table to do what I always do: write a scene for my next novel.
Sometimes water is frozen and melts into your basement. There is no choice but to surrender. Sometimes we’re frozen inside, and we need a flood to wake us up.
And when the water is everywhere, maybe it’s one being, one song.
love,
Kelly
"When the water is everywhere...maybe it is one being, one song." What a beautiful, poetic frame for the lesson of surrender (with the most stunning picture! It feels like a secret place, this beach). Come to Maine and we will do nothing but feel the elation of the waves on the sand. A different beach, a different song, for every day. Songs that speak the language of the heart...and your heart is a mighty one (I believe the water knows this).
The deluge! We forget, the overwhelm, the inundation is sometimes the awakening, the shapeshifter. Your writing (your book) is, your words are the ax that breaks through where we are frozen, held up, locked up inside. Thanks for moving me always.