Water, water everywhere

By Hyon O’Brien

Many things go over my head. I have no comprehension of how my word processor manages to save my articles and let me retrieve them later on, or how the article gets through the Internet to The Korea Times editor so it can make it into the newspaper.

No idea whatsoever of what’s involved for it to happen. There are thousands of things that I take advantage of as modern technology has made them available to me, but I wouldn’t be able to duplicate any of them if I were stranded on an island. I would go back directly to the Stone Age (if not before).

In college I studied English literature. Many works of literary giants were over my head. I remember being completely in the dark upon encountering Samuel Coleridge’s (1772-1834) strange poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The only thing I remember from that long eerie ballad-like poem is “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink….”

As Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States it seemed to dig these words out of the labyrinth of my mind and order me to write about water. So I obey and ramble on.

As Leonardo da Vinci simply put it, “Water is the driver of Nature.” During the hurricane and for days afterwards, as I pored over hundreds of pictures of water-submerged scenes of destruction, I was properly put in my place as a human, admitting that we are hopeless creatures in the face of nature that went berserk. Thrust inland by a fearsome wind and a 4 meter high tidal surge, water leaped, churned and inundated every place it could reach. If the storm meant to teach us that we are mere mortals, it certainly succeeded.

Someone said that we may be able to live without love but not without water. We also know that our body is made of lots of water, averaging 60 percent of our body weight. More than 70 percent of the earth we live on is water (92 percent of this non-drinkable salty water).

Given its place in our lives, it’s not strange that so many English idioms involve water. Language reflects the important elements of our belief system so over time we develop many expressions related to subjects that we have obsessed about: love, money, life and death, and of course water. As the battered areas slowly get back to normal, here are some water-related idioms that come to mind.

Fish out of water:

A fish dies once removed from water. When I first came to America I felt like a fish out of water. We had to return to Korea for me to mature to accept America as my own proper water. I learned what it meant to be out of my depth. I still sometimes feel like a fish out of water whenever I am surrounded by people of science, or when I read something related to a subject that I don’t know much about (of which there are too many).

Still waters run deep:

Evidently this idiom is a proverb of Latin origin now commonly taken to mean that beneath the calm exterior of a person, there is a depth of passion and strength of character. It can also mean that the silent majority when aroused is a dangerous power to reckon with. As we cannot judge a book by its cover, we can’t know people merely by their outer person. A man of few words is someone we need to pay attention to when he speaks.

Blood is thicker than water:

First appearing in a 12

th

century German epic, this proverb argues that the bond formed by common blood relations and ancestry is stronger than the bond arising from friendship. I personally do not agree with this saying in all cases. Sometimes a friendship that generates immeasurably powerful loyalty can be more rewarding even than family relationships.

Water under the bridge:

What happened in the past is no longer worth agonizing over. This is a worthwhile attitude to maintain. To reject the influence of the past is difficult but often necessary. It is a daily challenge to let go of the past in order to be more fully present in the here and now.

So I hope you always overcome the situations that make you feel like a fish out of water, plumb the still waters of the people you meet, and cultivate strong loving relationships with both blood kin and “watery” friends, and succeed in letting water flow past the bridge. Hang onto life with fresh resolve to focus only on the positive and lovely aspects. Let’s not let yesterday rob today.

I am truly thankful for water for teaching us so much wisdom.

Hyon O'Brien is a former reference librarian now living in the United States. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.