{"id":443,"date":"2009-08-16T09:14:40","date_gmt":"2009-08-16T13:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/?p=443"},"modified":"2009-08-16T09:14:40","modified_gmt":"2009-08-16T13:14:40","slug":"water-and-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/16\/water-and-personality\/","title":{"rendered":"Water and Personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent a lovely day playing at \"riverspirit54\"<\/a>riverspirit54<\/a><\/span>‘s house yesterday.\u00a0 She has the most beautiful spot by a narrow, shallow river with a broad sandy natural beach where we hang out, and\u00a0 a rock cliff with trees clinging to various spots on the other.\u00a0 From certain angles, it looks like something you’d see in Lord of the Rings for a close shot.\u00a0 Beautiful.<\/p>\n

You might get the slight impression that I like hanging out by water I can swim in.\u00a0 A little hint here and there, maybe…\u00a0 I’m a water baby.\u00a0 I’ve taken<\/em> vacations that did not revolve around water, and had a good time (especially if I was visiting a friend), but for the re-creation of my\u00a0self, there needs to be water.\u00a0 If it’s natural water, that’s so much the better.<\/p>\n

Obviously I love to swim and go to some trouble to ensure that I do regularly.\u00a0\u00a0 And I don’t sneer at pools and chlorine and how awful<\/em> the chemicals are.\u00a0 When it’s that or nothing,\u00a0I assure you a waterless life is not going to be my choice.\u00a0 But, I prefer “real” water when I have the opportunity.<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, we had a membership to a local pool.\u00a0 Summer afternoons, except Wednesdays because we had a swim meet and were not permitted to tire ourselves out, were spent there from about noon until time to make dinner.\u00a0 Daddy had a 16′ ski boat and on weekends, we’d be on Machodoc Creek1<\/sup> or the Potomac river skiing, having a picnic and generally playing on the water.\u00a0 If we begged enough, Daddy would sometimes take us to one of a couple of dockside restaurants that served steamed crabs.\u00a0 OM NOM NOM NOM.\u00a0 Nuttin’ like a Maryland crab feast with hushpuppies.\u00a0 That was rare.\u00a0 The definition of a boat is “a hole in the water into which you pour money”, so the fun of the boat was meant to be the central fun.<\/p>\n

A vacation meant water.\u00a0 We’d go to The Rivah2<\/sup>, or go with Nanny and Popie to Virginia Beach.\u00a0 If we went to Disney World, we’d usually drive and stop for one day at a beach on the way.\u00a0 We went to Nags Head a few times when I was young, and while from an objective point of view, it’s a better beach (wider, better waves, fewer people), Virginia Beach will probably always be The Beach in my heart.\u00a0 Going down 44 (oops, that’s 264 now…) and waving to the bunny3<\/sup> brings back really deep memories to me.<\/p>\n

But each body of water has its personality and its moods.\u00a0 It’s like getting to know a person, really.\u00a0\u00a0 Playing in a body of water, you feel the way the currents move differently at different times of the day or how it responds to the\u00a0wind in the\u00a0sky and the pull of the moon.\u00a0 I think one of the reasons I love to play at \"riverspirit54\"<\/a>riverspirit54<\/a><\/span>‘s place so much is that her river (it’s always been her<\/em> river to my family) has a powerful and soothing personality all its own.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/sup>A branch of the Potomac near Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center with nice, calm water that’s fantastic for skiing
\n2<\/sup>My aunt and uncle have a place on the mouth of the Potomac at the Chesapeake Bay. If you say you’re going down to The Rivah for the weekend to any real Richmonder, they’ll know you don’t mean the James<\/p>\n

3<\/sup>When you get on 264 and head to the oceanfront, on the left there is a u-store-it place that has a bunny as a logo. In years past, the bunny had an animated waving arm. When\u00a0my brother and I\u00a0were very small and so excited\u00a0we would almost pop about going to the beach, my parents would have us look for the bunny and wave to it. This year when Daddy was driving us down from Fredericksburg, I insisted that my children wave to the bunny. They thought I was messing with them, but Daddy backed me up that this was Serious Beach Tradition, so they did as I asked. I don’t think they truly\u00a0believed I wasn’t messing with them\u00a0until \"greendalek\"<\/a>greendalek<\/a><\/span> came down a few days later and mentioned that he, too, had waved to the bunny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent a lovely day playing at riverspirit54‘s house yesterday.\u00a0 She has the most beautiful spot by a narrow, shallow river with a broad sandy natural beach where we hang out, and\u00a0 a rock cliff with trees clinging to various spots on the other.\u00a0 From certain angles, it looks like something you’d see in Lord … <\/p>\n

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