Water Is Recreation/Re-Creation

On my desk is a little, blue marble. At first glance, it doesn't look like much—maybe some relic of childhood, a bauble I shoved in my pocket as a kid, something to swap with a buddy or roll around in my fingers. But closer examination reveals a tiny world. That's the point, the reason Dr. Wallace J. Nichols gave me—and the rest of the audience at the 2015 American Water Works Association ACE Conference in Anaheim—that little marble.

"Hold it at arm's length," he advised. "That's what the earth looks like from a million miles away."

Nichols figured there are a million blue marbles out there in the world representing our watery planet to people in the know. It seems like that would make my marble seem less significant, but somehow, it works the opposite way. Through that little marble, I feel connected to a million other people who feel the importance of the water that covers our little, blue planet, people who were touched by Dr. Nichols' message before he died unexpectedly at the age of 56 last June.

Water's like that. It's part of a global cycle, and we all float together. We all need water for our very survival. As Nichols wrote, water switches us from a "me" perspective to a "we" perspective.

J Nichols was an inspiration to me and so many others around the world. After he died, people who knew him well wrote grief-filled columns about his kindness, his wisdom, and his generous spirit. I only knew him through his ACE speech and his phenomenal book, Blue Mind, which celebrates the connections between the human brain and the world's water. The book explains in spiritual and scientific terms why water makes us feel so good. It's Nichols who got me thinking about water as both recreation—the medium of fun, weightless floating, splashing—and re-creation, the restoration of our minds and souls.

Bigger Gift

Like that little blue marble, Nichols' gift to me was much bigger than it at first appeared. After all, it's not every day the universe opens up to reveal unseen connections.

Water is called "the universal solvent" because so many compounds can dissolve in it. But in addition to carrying a wide range of solutes, water also has an equally uncanny ability to carry metaphors. We flow like water, we pound away at hopeless tasks like waves crashing on a rocky beach, we drown people in positives or negatives, we sink and we swim. One of the many gifts J Nichols brought to conversations about water was his deep sense that we are physically and spiritually connected to water. Water is us. We are water.

His fundamental argument centers on the fact that our brains float in water. Our most complex organ, a wrinkled mass of tissue that is somehow capable of processing signals with split-second timing, connecting thoughts, and extending to the metaphysical, is cushioned and nurtured by the water in our skulls. Floating our bodies in water stimulates biophilia—a love and connection with other living things—and lets our minds drift as our bodies do. It stimulates relaxation, creativity and mindfulness. As our ears fill with the burble and hum of watersound that drowns out the terrestrial world, we enjoy rare moments of solitude. We find peace and hope.

It's nature as medicine, and like prescription meds, compatibility and dose is specific to the user. Nichols used to ask, "what's your water?" There was no right or wrong answer. We all just had to have water we could relate to, whether it was the wonder and power of Niagara Falls, the solitude and simplicity of your bathtub, or the mystery of a puddle on the street. What he taught us is that we all have "our water," and that water is key to our constant re-creation.

Flow

In Blue Mind, Nichols differentiated between the chaos and survival instinct at the top of the "red mind" and the creativity, mindfulness and flow of the "blue mind," the brain connected to water. He also recognized that water doesn't make us immune to tension or conflict, though it does make it possible for us to flow with—and past—it. "What walls have you swum through?" he asked.

Water has helped me swim through all sorts of walls and allowed me to flow on personal and career journeys that have opened the world to me. It's also been the basis of much of my recreation. From a rich cup of coffee to a spectacular glass of wine, walks along Long Island Sound, Lake Okeechobee, Kowloon Harbor, the Napa River and the Pacific Ocean, equal fascination with pristine rivers and masterfully designed wastewater treatment plants, water has energized and captivated me my whole life. And for that reason, it's both recreation and re-creation...as far as the eye can see from the beach and all wrapped up in that little, blue marble when I imagine the view from a million miles away.

J Nichols wasn't somebody I knew personally. But I will think of him every time I look at the marble he gave me, and every time I realize how connected my floating brain is to the rest of the planet and all of us who share it, connected by water.