Calliope: Voice of the Writers
August 9, 2008
"The Water Child"
from Kaleidoscopic Contemplations
by Crystal Crawford
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There was a girl once, born near the ocean, for whom water meant home and comfort. She loved water, the soothing sounds of it, the cleansing flow of rain and the peaceful rhythm of waves; she loved the power of it, the crash of ocean waves and the rumble and shake of thunderstorms; she loved her watery home, where rivers, lakes, and ocean were nearby her always, and where rainstorms were a frequent friend.
But water was a threatening companion, with power for harm and destruction, housing various deadly creatures in its comforting abyss; and as the girl grew older, her love for the water was tainted by fear – fear of its darkened expanses, fear of its lurking inhabitants, fear of its consuming depths. And yet she was thrilled by its beauty, drawn to it yet fearful of it, and she found herself standing often at the brink of the ocean, the river, the lake, observing its beauty but hesitant to go in. Even while she feared the water, she longed to be a part of it again, as she was in her childish innocence, when predators and danger were farthest from her mind.
And then came one day at the beach, when she ventured farther into the ocean’s depths than she had been in years, and as she watched the waves crest and fall against each other, and felt their gentle push against her body, she saw just a few yards out two fins, curved, and she was shocked to find that even through her ingrained fear of ocean inhabitants, she did not for a moment mistake them for anything other than what they were – dolphins, two of them, their arched backs sliding up and over the waves then back down into them, gracefully, swiftly, as their glistening skin melted into shimmering ripples in the distance.
Then all at once it came back to her, the rushing thrill of the ocean, the passion she had for it in her innocent dreams, when working and swimming with dolphins was a cherished possibility.
But where will she go from here, this disillusioned child, having sold her hopes for the comfort of something safer, having settled for the convenient path, the familiar path, the path with the least resistance?
So she has chosen a new course. She has chosen to change her path, to return to her dreams, in the hopes of finding that passion again, that thrill that once fueled her plans for the future. She has chosen a new course, and a new path now lies ahead of her. All the possibilities of the world are open to her, once again, as they were in her innocent dreams.
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