Monday, May 09, 2005

On Water, Actual & As Metaphor

Yesterday evening the water began flowing again.
The end of the "Dry Season" here is, supposedly, approaching. This is very good as the predominant shade of the world is now a sort of ochre. Include also umbers and sepia...all earth colors and siennas against a turquoise, a pthalo blue, sky so sharp that objects against it seem to have been cut out with scissors.
Beneath the lavanderia, the laundry patio,is the alhimbe. It is merely a cement holding tank into which the city water flows. The City Water Dept. is known as Oompas.
Next.....there is a pump, the bomba, which due to the amazingly antiquated and taped together wiring...one must turn on and off manually. This is done by flipping the on/off switch on a power strip extension cord into which the pump is plugged. The pump, when turned on, pumps water up to the tinaco, a cement water resevoir on the roof which gravity feeds the water into the pipes of the house.
In the past month, during this very hot dry time, the city water has been turned off several times, for days at a time due to low water levels, backed up pipes, corroded pipes.
As an American woman, accustomed to the under-acknowledged affluence of life in most of America.....I have underestimated the beauty and wonderfulness of seemingly unlimited fresh, abundant, clean water.
Here, even when, like today, the city water is flowing unimpeded...it is only good for flushing toilets, showering, washing dishes, laundry, watering plants. One can drink the water if one boils it for 20 minutes first. When purchasing any fruits or vegetables one must always soak them in water for 15 minutes to which has been added drops of water purifier to kill the bacteria, parasites etc.. The water trucks deliver large plastic bottles of drinking water for drinking , making ice, making coffee.

Never have I given so much thought to water.

Here, now after I wash my face, it feels a size too small....one's skin feels dry and one becomes a lover of oils and creams, coconut and avocado oils, shea and mango and cocoa butters.....one uses hair conditioners by the handful. The air is so dry that one notices the lack of moisture in ones' lungs, in ones' nasal passages, in ones' eyes.
Palettes of watercolor paints are dry in no time...I was accustomed to covering my palette and the puddles of paint would remain until I returned and uncovered the palette to find the same puddles, waiting for me. Now I need to add purified water with an eye dropper, reconstituting the evaporated paint.
Painting a wash over a large area, once is forced to act quickly, without hesitation as the window of opportunity shrinks.Frisket dries quickly, stretched paper dries in no time as well.

Without water life withers, witholds, becomes less magnanimous.
I appreciate and bless and love water with a new found wonder and depth of feeling. Water is life and water is a metaphor for flow.
Unimpeded flow, uncontaminated, crystalline, abundant flow.
There is only abundant Flow, there is only Source.....
Flow of water, flow of resources, flow of energy and creativity and flow of ideas. Free flow of heartfelt love and attention and empathy and understanding. Valves wide open with no blockages. Lack and Scarcity are merely the valves blocked, shut down, the pipes corroded. Abundance chafing against resistance.

I am picturing Life as Water today.
Filling me with happiness as the tinaco fills with water.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh dear Wendy do I know your pain!...almost at least. New Mexico can make one feel like your lost in an oven and your skin fried & tight...hot dry lungs, bloody noses, dry eyes...but when the sky does open up, people rejoice and dance in the streets. We save each drop from the sky in buckets, stare in awe at the raging water flowing through the city arroyos, where every year someone is so tempted that they get too close and fall in, either to their death or serious injury. It's all a foreign life force to those desert rats. Sad and funny.
I wonder how the fierce heat and harsh climate contribute to creativity, as water does in your metaphore for life? the yin and yang of it all? I'll think of something to add. Monica

Anonymous said...

Wendy,
I just discovered your blog! :)Wow, you're really a good writer! I laughed out loud several times! (Pink and black cats, indeed!)
And the water! Having lived in Mexico City for a few months, I can relate! The wonder for me was running hot water when I got back to the States--not having to light the water heater and wait a half an hour all for a quick 3
minute "hot" shower!!
You ought to put all this together, title it "How not to move to Mexico" or some such, and get it published!