My mother hated water, she said.
The leaks in the roof, the water seeping into the basement where she was nearly electrocuted once as, one foot in the water, she reached a hand out to the washing machine and found herself stuck there with current going up and down one side of her body, lucky she was, they said — since it would have been the end of her — to throw herself backward without reaching out that other hand to pry herself off.
She hated the leaks under the sink. That dripping.
She wasn’t fond of storms and she was terrified of Grand Traverse Bay, she having never learned to swim.
She got seasick standing on the dock.
She loved good dry land and the sun.
My father whose grandfather was a steamboat captain, loved water, all forms.
I love rivers, how they seem to beckon, the hidden recesses of them that seem to match those in your mind. I love their mystery, their movement, the deadfall, the holes you must shuffle to avoid.
I love how they change.
I love rivers.
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Author: lynnfay73
Disclaimer: Will no doubt revise this almost immediately but for now: I am a mother, wife, daughter, friend, fisherman and writer. (My second novel was released by Wayne State University, spring 2016. I write creative nonfiction -- one received an Honorable Pushcart mention -- but mostly short stories. I am also a class-less (without classes, not without manners, though some might disagree) Assistant Contingent Professor at Northern Michigan University which gives me, you guessed it, more time to mother, daughter, wife, fish, write, etc. (I have recently become "classy" once more having taught Fall 2016 and will be teaching two classes Winter 2017). I live off the grid with my son Josh who has Down Syndrome, various floating family members, and my English shepherd dog Maggie, who loves to herd children, birds, and bunnies. I'm working now on a wood fire memoir titled Woodfire Diaries: Cooking and Writing on the Little Two Hearted River.
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