Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

W A T E R The ocean is where the first speck of life emerged, some 3.8 billion years ago. The speck evolved into algae capable of photosynthesis, resulting in the first supply of oxygen. This oxygen, interacting with ultraviolet rays from the sun, encased the earth in a protective vale called the ozone layer Then, some 420 million years ago, life took its first step out of the water, and feed itself from the depths of the ocean with the help if oxygen and the ozone layer. Masaru Emoto, The Hidden Messages in Water (New York: Simon & Schuster Atria Books, .2001), 59. I remember someone grabbing me under water and hauling me up by the hair, but my father claims I came up on my own and that I splashed a few strokes toward him—he had swan dived directly after me (from the ledge of the pool, needless to say)—but from that time on anything that had to do with large amounts of water was something I looked upon with suspicion, but I grew up in Indiana, a land-locked state, so that all that I had to fear were lakes and large rivers, not the true terror of dark oceans and black seas. I had a hard time growing up because the only thing that seemed to give me respite from the violent world all around me that my father controlled was finding a place to hide and then pulling out a book and reading. I lived in books. I thought the people who wrote them were gods. They could create and control whole worlds, and the thing I wanted most to be was one of them. All I ever thought from the time I was eight was that I wanted to be a writer. That this should be my ambition is ironic because I am dyslexic. Nobody knew what that was at the time; you were just labeled dumb or stubborn about not learning to write right or were a cutup for transferring your numbers around as if you were setting up a code to test the teacher.