An Invitation to Water
When I was a child, I was afraid of water.
Not of drowning, but of its depth — of what might be hiding underneath.
Even in shallow lakes I imagined shapes moving below, unseen worlds that could swallow me whole.
It wasn’t really fear of water. It was fear of the unknown.
Years later, I decided to face that fear.
I learned to dive.
Descending into the element that once terrified me, I listened to the hiss of my regulator and felt weightless, suspended between earth and sky.
That first moment of breathing underwater changed something in me.
Water, I realized, is both mirror and mystery.
It shows you exactly how much control you never had.
Freedom, for me, has many forms —
but sailing remains the purest.
It started simply.
One morning I felt tired of my own excuses.
I turned the shower to full cold.
My breath stopped.
My body protested.
But I stayed.
That small act became a ritual, and rituals have a way of changing who you are.
When the cold showers lost their edge, I went to the river before sunrise.
Immersing myself in black water, shouting a single raw word into the dark — then silence.
Later, coffee in hand, watching the first light hit the surface…
That was peace, earned not given.
People ask whether you get used to it.
You don’t.
The cold never changes; only you do.
After half a minute the pain dissolves into something bright, almost holy.
It feels like a secret gift — the body shutting down its noise so the soul can breathe.
Water has taught me again and again.
Learning freestyle for triathlon was another lesson.
Every session stripped me of illusion.
Mistakes punished instantly; progress measured in millimeters.
Hours staring at the bottom of the pool, counting breaths, surrendering thought.
In dark rivers, there is no bottom to watch — only instinct, only rhythm, only the brief gasp for air before returning to the quiet below.
Water doesn’t flatter.
It tests.
It reveals.
And then there’s the rain.
Running in heavy rain is one of life’s great privileges.
You don’t meet many out there when the sky collapses.
It’s a brotherhood of the few who understand that beauty lives inside discomfort.
The sound of drops hitting asphalt, the metallic taste in the air, the smell of wet earth — it’s symphonic.
Every step feels like baptism.
While others hide indoors, we run through the storm and remember what being alive truly means.
So this is not just an ode — it’s an invitation.
To meet water in all its forms:
- in the calm of the lake, in the cruelty of the river, in the cleansing rain, in the quiet of your own reflection.
- To let it strip away the noise until only truth remains.
- To be reminded, again and again,
that freedom begins where comfort ends.
