After most runs, I sit by a stream. It has become routine. Me, the water, and silence. Not the kind of silence that feels empty, but the kind that listens back.
The stream moves slow and steady. Water runs over stone. The sound is soft, deep, familiar. It feels like a bassline in a song only nature knows. It grounds me. No words. No effort. Just flow.
Out there, I remember things I forgot I carried. The smell of wet soil. Dancing in the rain. The weightless laughter of childhood. Riverbanks where we used to wash clothes, splash around, yell across the water. Harvest season. Farmers gathering periwinkle in muddy fields. Songs sung to thank the earth. My grandmother’s cassava and yam, growing strong in the soil of Calabar.
These memories rise like mist. Unexpected but welcome. I sit with them.
Water does that. From the tap, from the sky, in city drains or quiet streams. It speaks. It pulls something quiet from inside and lays it bare. It does not heal everything, but it helps. It reminds. It soothes. It asks nothing.
I have come to see water as more than a thing. It is a companion. It does not fix my life, but it gives it rhythm. It is strength without shouting. Movement without rush. A mirror without judgment.
So next time you find water. Running, falling, still. Pause. Watch. Listen. Let it remind you who you were before the world made you hurry. Let it settle you. That is enough.
