I wrestled with the Brita filter for maybe 12 minutes this morning, which is at least 10 minutes too many. The filter refused to fit correctly, and I was exhausted, but eventually I triumphed— exciting because it seems to me that water may be the cure for everything. “Have you been drinking enough water?” “Drink more water.” “Hydrate or die-drate.” I assume there’s at least an ounce of truth in that considering the human body is 60% water.
Admittedly, I don’t drink enough water. I used to drink enough water. I used to drink 64 oz of water a day, religiously. But I got tired of drinking it, and then I became tired because I wasn’t drinking it, and it became the ugliest water cycle I have ever experienced. My energy was evaporating, I condensed into nothing, and precipitation came only from my eyes.
I wonder if a heavy heart is a full heart. If it fills to the brim, does it overflow? Does it pour over the sides and puddle at my feet?
I wonder what percentage of water my body loses when I cry. How much I need to drink to replenish what I lose when my eyes swell. What is the fluid ounce equivalent of a single tear rolling down my cheek and dripping down into the shower drain? There are millions of droplets then. How do I distinguish which belonged to me and which belonged to the showerhead?
Steam fogs up the mirror, wiping it away with wet hands. My body is water resistant, not waterproof. Somehow, some way, it all seeps in and fills me up to utmost capacity.
I wonder if a heavy heart is a full heart. If it fills to the brim, does it overflow? Does it pour over the sides and puddle at my feet?
Or does it sink and drown?
I think I would prefer to step in puddles. But then I am confronted with the difficulty of distinguishing which puddles resulted from a spillage of emotion and which have lingered from the last isolated thunderstorm. The rain instructs the Earth to “drink more water” in hopes of salvation. It all seeps in somehow, down into the soil and roots. It nourishes the plants, and they grow strong with sunshine. The planet is 71% water; it needs to hydrate, too.
I could be the Earth. The rain could be the condensation rolling down the Brita filter, hydrating the body, healing the body.
Water may be the cure for everything.
