Treading Water

In The Tao of Womanhood it is written, "nothing in the world is more gentle than water, yet nothing is stronger." And nothing has been running through my life, in waves and buckets and flash floods more than water.

Perhaps it is because my ancestors hailed from Ireland and Scotland - island countries - that water seems to follow me. Perhaps someone, generations ago, angered a Celtic water sprite and the revenge has carried through to my generation. I can't be sure about how it started, but one thing I AM sure about - I am tired of mopping up!

The daily news is full of reports of horrific floods, mudslides and global warming that threatens to melt the polar ice caps. Thankfully, my problems with liquefied hydrogen and oxygen do not reach those proportions. No, instead, I deal with the steady water torture drip of one soggy incident after another.

The analogy is, of course, that we all come from a womb that is full of water, and looking back over the evolutionary trail, we find muddy tracks leading right back into a primeval swamp. So, maybe, I was just reverting to primitive instincts when, at 6 years old, I decided to fill up the bathtub, spritz in some bubble bath, and let the water level rise to the top of the shower doors. Well, maybe I did forget the water was running - but I sure remembered when my mother encountered a waterfall of bubbles cascading down the steps of our Brooklyn home.

Flooding the house is a required skill for any kid. My son overflowed the toilet in our townhouse and soon the water was pouring through the ceiling, blowing out the recessed lights like fireworks. The mysterious part, however, is why at that particular moment of toilet clogging, did the water to the toilet decide it was not going to shut off, sending rivers of water down the hall, through the ceiling, even reaching the basement two floors below?

During a meeting of the Garden State Horror Writers, I may have discovered the answer. Lecturing that day was a professional ghost hunter, and she mentioned how many ghosts are seen around water sources, especially bathrooms. Now, to me, that sounds like there is an epidemic of dysentery in the afterlife, but the ghost hunter assured me that water is a source of power and life, and it attracts supernatural forces. So, quite possibly, at the exact moment my son was clogging the toilet, a jovial spirit may have decided to have a little prank on us.

It could have been a spirit that has been following me all my life. After all, it would be a good explanation for the "singing toilet" of my childhood. I know that pipes can bang and whistle and imitate the entire percussion section of the New York Philharmonic. But, the toilet in our house, every time it was flushed, would let out a tone so tuneful and long, it would have made Pavarotti jealous.

Logic dictates that such a mischievous water spirit has alternately inhabited the dishwasher, washing machine and bathtub, all normal sources of flooding incidents. What frightens me is the possibility that these supernatural comedians may get together in force to play their little practical jokes. I'm sure if you think about it, you will realize it is true. I am talking about the beach.

I now live in New Jersey, so going to the beach - the shore, as we call it - is a required rite of passage. All of us can relate stories of the wave that knocked us down, carried us out and almost deposited us on the shores of France. That's normal. But consider this - once my children were standing by the waves, just watching. Every so often, the water would come too close and they would run back up the sand, giggling. This must have angered something or someone, because the next thing I know is, a wave sends up a large spray that smacks one of the kids right in the nose, giving him an instant nosebleed.

Another time, my two daughters wee sitting on the edge of the water, playing in the shallows. They were splashing and laughing. Suddenly, a wave comes rushing in, knocking them over. As the wave receded, I was shocked to see that both girls hand been turned upside down and were stuck, by their heads, in the sand. Their little arms and legs were flapping around uselessly as they tried to right themselves like overturned turtles. I don't need to be hit over the head with the moral of these stories - do not laugh at the ocean. It will get you.

My list of watery encounters is lengthy. Every house my parents ever owned had a leaky basement. On one occasion, the leak was lapping halfway up the basement stairs. In one of the apartments I lived in, the radiators began spewing reddish-black liquid. Since the radiators were inside covers, I had no idea what was going on until my downstairs neighbors knocked on the door to calmly ask why blood was running down their walls. Their calm was surprising, but perhaps they had been softened by the previous week's flood in their kitchen caused by my overflowing portable washing machine. Looking back, I wonder if all this water trouble was related to the "man in the bathtub" that my toddler daughter insisted she could both see and talk to.

The battle goes on to the present day. After sinking all my money into my current house, the crawl space underneath it suddenly filled up with four inches of water. Electric wires sizzled, shorting out the refrigerator and the water heater. My oldest daughter, who was both dirty and hungry at the time, blamed me entirely. I don't even want to get into what happened when the sewer backed up or when the pipes froze and the water meter exploded on Christmas Eve. Most recently, on the night before I was to enter the hospital for surgery on my personal plumbing, my sump pump died in the middle of a monsoon.

I've thought about traveling to Scotland to find out exactly what happened between my relatives and the water nymphs. From there, I may have to go to Ireland to find out which leprechaun is dousing my family. Until I get to the bottom of it, there's only one thing to do - tread water. And treading water I am!

Not too long after writing this essay, the author's home town endured a storm in which 10 inches of rain fell in 3 hours, resulting in the flooding seen in the attached photo. Did she anger the water gods by writing this essay? We may never know.