So much water
Water, in the Australian summers of my memory, is as precious as gold. What I was willing to sacrifice for the feel of those tumultuous, dumping waves on my sizzled skin, or the red-brown muddy syrup of a farm damn/remnant pool of a dried-up river! How I'd gulp at the warm, stale water that’s sat for hours in an oven-hot car. And I'd wake up at 6 am, the cicadas already loud, the sweat already dripping down my back, to water wilted tomatoes during the hours permitted by water restrictions. I would bring those tomatoes briefly back to life and think with wonder of the sprinklers we ran through in our childhoods, and the cars we hosed down in the street.
But while Melbourne’s fountains are turned off for dry summer months to collect dust and rubbish, Helsinki’s fountains are turned on for summer, with the harsh winter months gone. The ice melts, exposing the Baltic Sea and tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of lakes strewn across the countryside, and the grass grows green and thick and soft.
I marvel at this abundance of water, and my freedom to use it. To just turn the bathroom hose on full and blast the walls and floors clean. To shower before, after and during a sauna. Recently we took a weekend trip to the country to visit our friend. We swam in a cold clear lake. We hosed down and washed a rug under a continuous spray of water. We walked through the soft, green summer grass to dangle our feet into a river that looked like something out of Wind in the Willows.
I love the water of my summer memories. The water that brings ecstatic relief from the gasping heat against a backdrop of noisy, sticky summer days. And I love discovering the water of this summer, so liberally soaking the soft, quiet greenery of summer days.
