A story from Reverend Diane Walker: Water, in its many forms and expression, has literally saved my life and soul through 68 years of living!
Growing up in south Florida, I was surrounded by water for play and recreation. We swam in a neighbors’ pool daily and on late night swims, when everyone else retreated inside, I would pretend I was a mermaid under the moonlight, and swim with an abandon I wouldn’t let others see. I felt free and I felt at home, within myself, in water.
As a family, we went on frequent visits to the beach, on boat rides and when things were distressing as a young person in a household of dis function, I would go to the waters’ edge of the vast ocean and know everything was going to be OK. The ocean had a magic beyond understanding! I later became a certified scuba diver and explored some of that magic below.
There was always this sense of peace and calm, sitting near any body of natural wate, whether seaside, by a lake, a pond or a trickling brook. Water indeed was healing!!
Later in life, when I started to have therapeutic issues of my body structure, I could no longer exercise in my normal fashion of walking, hiking, dancing and bike riding, I took to the water for my daily aerobic exercise. First, at any pool I could find and then at the therapeutic pool at the Home of the Innocents, Mary T Meagher Center and later at the YMCA in New Albany IN.
My play area now became my literal healing treatment and my place of sanity from depression when I could no longer move my body as normal. Water allowed me to freely move without pain as I found all kinds of ways to work my body. With noodles and styro foam weights, I would create a parallel bar to do acrobatics in the weightless water. With a torn knee meniscus and severe degenerative disc in my back and neck, it was unbearable to move on land. Water was my savior.
When my doctor prescribed PT, I requested the possibility of aqua PT since I loved being in the water, I was more likely to do it regularly. I do these exercises 3-4 times a week, to this day, as maintenance. With eventual rotator cuff surgery, my biggest struggle besides the horrible pain of that injury and repair, was that I could not get in the water. My spirit declined and finally after my surgical wound healed well enough, I asked the doctor if I could get back in the pool? She said an immediate no, fearing I might jerk my arm and injure it again. I asked if that was her only concern? Confirming yes, I bought a cloth sling and a large velcro strap, asking a friend to strap my recovering arm firmly to me body and proceeded to swim one armed for the duration of the several month recovery. Literally saving my sanity and keeping my atrophied body moving.
A few more water stories: I found myself in the 1990’s, in a village in Tanzania Africa, working on a project to bring much needed water to the village of 4000 where the women would walk 10 miles every day, carrying large buckets of water on their heads, back to the village. The project built a water system with accessible spicket in the village and they thought we were angels from heaven. We take so much for granted here in the USA as we waste and pollute our precious water.
Water, oh holy water. How grateful I am for you! These days you find me either at the YMCA therapeutic pool or doing laps in the Olympic size pool, (free on Silver Sneakers program as an elder), at my apartment saline pool and the glorious Falling Rock Quarry in LaGrange KY, in summer months, at Sikhino Salt Float Center in New Albany or simply finding a body of water to sit and relax by wrapped in a blanket through winter.
I also love to drink fresh, clean water (that I have to purify from constant pollutants) I love to soak in a hot tub or take a refreshing shower to start the day or soothe my tired body at the end of it. And, I so appreciate that I can wash and cleanse life, at every level, with our sacred waters.