A few years ago, I had a dream in which I awoke on fire.  The fire was not fed by my flesh, but the burning was real.  I tried to stop, drop and roll - the flames continued.  I jumped into the shower, to no avail.  No one else was concerned by the inferno which engulfed me, but the roar in my ears demanded attention.  The fire extinguisher actually made it hotter.

 I ran down the street like a torch, looking for a way to put it out.  As I approached the falling-down, two-story, formerly white victorian home (which does not exist in life, but has been in several dreams), the three dark wizened women who rocked on the rotting front porch cackled and slapped their knees when they saw me.  The one who smoked the corn-cob pipe called after me:

"You hafta go to the river!  Go to the river!"

So I did.  I waded in, baptizing myself, and felt the cool relief at last.  Dazed, I allowed myself to float on my back with current for a bit, then lazily breast-stroked my way to the bank.  I walked home dripping wet, but no longer aflame.  And I woke up. 

 ____________

From the moment I was born, it seems, I have had no fear of water.  The story goes that as a little Owl 2 years of age, when my toes touched the sandy beach on the shore of Torch Lake, I outran my terrified mother to plunge straight in, up to my chin, keeping my head above water with tiptoed jumps in rhythm with the waves.  She taught me to blow bubbles in the water, and the "dead man's float," but sent me to swimming lessons for the strokes.

I learned to swim, then, in the inland lakes of Michigan, where the water is cold until June or July, and where there are still rumors of ghosts and even monsters.

When we lived across the bay from Leelanau, I found my great love, Lake Michigan.  For my lady, the lake, dressed herself new for each season.  Her moods were imperial, epic - she could kill hundreds at a blow, then return to a contented placidness almost without transition. She was inscrutible and lovely.

Each season had a special appeal.  In my lady, the Lake, I could swim out a quarter mile and back again, scaling the waves as the water grew darker, riding the waves in on my way back to the beach.  I bodysurfed among the boulders. I walked for miles in the surf, with only the gulls as company.  I skiied the ice, peering into the ice volcanoes to see open water. 

When, at 15, I felt I could no longer continue in this life, my plan was to walk out to the open water, and allow her icy embrace to lull me to forever sleep; I set the stage for "accidental death" by daily visits, and although I cursed her at the time, her early thaw, replete with the crackling and booming of the floes, saved my life.

It was along her shores, as children, that my brothers and sister and I walked hand in hand with Grandma M., searching the shallows for Petoskey Stones, sand rubbed glass, and other treasures.  In spite of the months between visits, she always remembered what each of us had been reading, and asked about it by name.  As appropriate, she might quote Shakespeare or Homer, but in the presence of my lady, the Lake, Grandma always spoke of Longfellow:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

And so, please understand when I am not appeased by a pool.  Cement boundaries confine me, and the inevitable cluster of half-naked humanity makes me feel over-exposed.  It smells of chemicals, and is baked warm by the sun and body heat.  It does not feed my soul.

Please bear with me when a mere pond does not sate me - ponds are too often gathered into land which was not meant to hold water.  Ponds smell of wet top soil and clay. There are no whitecaps curling in the wind. My spirit will not breathe there.

I search for living water. A stream, perhaps - but not a canal.  Maybe a river, but not a reservoir.  The oceans and seas are beautiful, but their frothy tears do not move me.

I search for the living water.  The water of my youth.  The water which will quench the flame.

 ____________

UPDATE:  Brother Tijo wrote me a poem.  He heard the voices of the women in my dream.  I don't know quite how to respond, except that I am touched and honored.  If you like, please read his piece here.

.