What is it about water that always stirs me so?
How strangely opposite it is from air, I think to myself.
You can’t live without either, but as you breathe in each – one sustains and the other drowns.
How can either be more natural than the other if your survival depends on both?
As I tempt the current to carry me away, a breeze pulls a piece of my hair across my face.
Was the wind trying to save or suffocate me?
Its movement changes the water’s course, and I realize my error.
I am not a mermaid.
The land is my home – a sturdy foundation upon which to stand.
Treading water would only exhaust my heart and leave me gasping for breath.
The competing sounds of rustling leaves and rolling waves echo my unsteady pulse.
The birds chirp as if to wake me from this wandering daydream.
I look once more over my shoulder at the lake; imagining the ability to dive into its embrace.
I think, maybe, it would feel like flying.