Water, Weeds, Wonder - Serenity
Sep 08, 2021
If you seek serenity, go sit next to some water.
In the year 1978 (AD, not BCE) I graduated from college. My very first job was in Lexington Park, Maryland.
If you are unfamiliar with the area (and too lazy to look it up on a map), Lexington Park is in the southeast part of Maryland in St Mary's County. The northern boundary of the county is the Patuxent River. The southern boundary is the Potomac River. The eastern boundary is the Chesapeake Bay.
That's a lot of water.
Now, I am not saying I grew up as a hillbilly. But I could have. Most of my formative years I was in the northern foothills of the Catskill Mountains. I spent my summers working at a camp in the Adirondack Mountains. My college was in a fairly flat area, but one year I regularly hitchhiked across the width of the Adirondacks to visit my girlfriend at the time.
As you may have guessed from my description above, Patuxent River - no hills.
I had always grounded myself in the hills and mountains. When I was processing my teenage angst it was always in the setting of a hillside or looking up at the mountains. It was part of how I defined myself. The great limestone and granite solidity of the hills was where I grounded my energy. (This was way before new-agers gave the word "grounding" to it, but that's what I did).
When I reached Southern Maryland, I was on a great big sand spit, surrounded by water. No bedrock. No hills. No mountains.
I was at a loss.
At least I was worldly enough to know that many people pulled their strength from water rather than hills. So I set aside several weekends in a row to teach myself to connect and "ground" with water. I drove to the very end of the county where Point Lookout State Park sits.
And I sat next to the water.
And slowly I began to observe it rhythms, its moods, and most importantly its seemingly endless ability to adapt to any amount of disturbance and still return to serenity.
I still lift my eyes to the mountains. My annual birthday sojourn to Yosemite is about much more than the buffet at the Ahwahnee.
But with 71% of the earth's surface covered with water, I also pull my serenity from the sea.