Maybe My Next House Should Be A Boathouse
I’ve always lived by water. Most of the planet does. Although coming from the Sahel, I think the reptilian parts of our brains finds living by water the height of decadence. It’s very calming to be by large bodies of water. I easily understand the idea of the calling of the sea, even if I’ve never acted on it.
First I lived by Lake Michigan. Then it was the inland lakes of Wisconsin formed by the glaciers of the last Ice Age.
Then came the rivers. The Thames, the mighty Mississippi.
The rivers are a different creature than the lakes. Rivers are active, carve, present and immediate. Lakes are passive, quiet, but ultimately more calming. Back to that innate sense of decadence. All that water. Think of the things I could do with it! I could drink as much as possible and it won’t dry up. I can bathe. I can water crops. I can freeze it and chip it to make the perfect pina colada. I can boil it and turn it into steam, and using that steam I can power a ship that travels over that very body of water.
Necessity is the mother of invention. But maybe the seas are the fun aunts that bring a lot of presents at Christmas. Makes inventing sound more like a positive force of creation, and not inspiration through frustration.
