Mini Water Syllabus
Para Iemanjá: Ontem, hoje, e todos os dias no futuro
Recently, I had my first official pool day of the summer. From 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. I swam in salt water, ate poolside snacks, lounged in the sun & did it all again. At one point the sky broke open & rain fell heavily from the clear blue sky. We took refuge under tables with umbrellas until the sun appeared bright & warm again. We returned to the pool, refueled & easily sank into the water that reminded us of our natural state.
This was a day that I was very present in my body. I felt that I was an active part of the world. My favorite part, in between swimming & floating, was witnessing my Black family & family friends play in the water.
I watched my three-year-old little cousin jump repeatedly & fearlessly into the pool. She jumped, swam, and then transformed her body into a starfish to float atop the water before swimming back to the arms of her mother. Clap for me! All the while, her sassafras yellow & blue beads shook on the end of her cornrows. She clapped for herself, a habit she has maintained since birth, & we joined the chorus of her celebration. Clap for me! I saw us floating & carrying little ones on our backs through the water. And I heard deep laughter that mimicked the thundering of my little cousin’s beads.
[An audio recording of me reading the poem below 💙]
Clap for me, for I am in bloom. From mounds of earth, I grew pearls to chew. The earth quaked when I first spoke my name. Clap for me. That I’m free of everything gravity’s chains trained you to be. The 7 oceans have not yet battered my borders. There, is just one seamless sea. My heart has never heard the sirens blistering blues. A whispering wave is just a ripple, until I wade through. A den full of lions, just a busy room. Clap for me. As my brown stumps stretch into saltwater taffy trunks– rooted above brackish waters I, lift my skirt up walking over senseless man’s gro(o)ves. Clap for me. For finding rest in a trench, for constantly making homes of tombs.
The water makes me feel present, alive, free, limitless, weightless, & unburdened. So, I have decided to honor the beautiful time I had with loved ones by gathering a list. The method of this list is association. I started with the first source & let my brain wander to what it naturally connected to it. Below, you will find a small cherished list of things I think about when I think of water.
“All water has perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” — Toni Morrison from The Source of Self Regard, “God’s Language,” p. 243
This beautiful short film follows semi-pro surfer Julian Williams telling his story of connecting with the ocean. Additionally, this short film highlights the complexity of the beautiful natural landscape of Hawaii with the tense racial prejudice Julian experienced. This film moved me not only because of the breathtaking cinematography but also because the central theme is one I hold dear to my heart. Loving land that has both nourished & scarred you is a sentiment many Black Southerners carry within us. It can be difficult to explain sometimes but the sharp cuts between calming & fast scenes in this film provide the visual language for this feeling.
Quotes That Moved Me
💙 “The ocean became my church.”
💙 “Seeing my connection on the water, I feel connected to my surroundings. My mind was more open & I could process things more clearly. It was almost more meditative. It allowed me to reflect on my life, & its happenings, water sort of became my spiritual guide. While looking into that reflection, I began to see more for myself than what I was actually living.”
💙 “Sometimes you got to jump & build your wings on the way down.”
When I saw the moment from the short film above, it instantly reminded me of the work of Calida Rawles. Calida is one of my favorite visual artists primarily because of her use of water as a medium. Within her artist bio, Calida expands more upon the meaning of water as a vessel within her work.
“For Rawles, water signifies both physical and spiritual healing as well as historical trauma and racial exclusion. She uses this complicated duality as a means to envision a new space for Black healing, and to reimagine her subjects beyond racialized tropes. Embedded in her titles and topographical notations in her compositions, Rawles’s canvases represent an expansive vision of strength and tranquility during today’s turbulent times.”
Calida uses water to express the same juxtaposition Julian describes about his spiritual connection to water & being excluded in the place he calls home. The film still above immediately brought to mind Thy Name We Praise (below). In both images, the subject is submerged in water with their arms outstretched to the left & right of them. In Thy Name We Praise, the subject is submerged in a prism of refracted light creating an upward movement around the subject’s body. The subject’s white dress brings to mind baptismal scenes with winged arms lifted in surrender. Whereas in Julian’s film still, the water seems omniscient but the bubbles surrounding Julian are proof of life. Furthermore, the bubbles are proof that his wings did indeed form on the way down.
The next dot my mind connected was one of my favorite books that Calida Rawles actually painted the cover for. Calida painted the cover of The Water Dancer for her good friend Ta-Nehisi Coates. This novel explores water as memory keeper & portal, slavery in the United States South, freedom seekers, & more. In The Water Dancer painting, we see the continuing of outstretched arms come full circle. The subject’s arms are reached upward above his head with his hands cupped forming the letter C. The three still images in the piece document & create movement piece by piece. From Julian’s arms outstretched to a T, the subject in Thy Name We Praise arms’ being more bent at the elbows, & finally in the cover the subject’s arm comes around. In the book cover painting, the subject’s arms push water upward & out creating luminescent ripples. While no bubbles were present in Thy Name We Praise, plenty are present below.
Quotes I Think of Often
💙 “I simply told myself this thing that must become my truth. I am free (p. 260).”
💙 “The light of freedom had been reduced to embers, but it was still shining in me, and borne up by the winds of fear, I keep running, bent, looping, locked, but running all the same, with my whole chest aflame (p. 203).”
💙 “We are what we always were (p. 558).”
Lastly, when I think about the arms in the subject of The Water Dancer painting I think of freestyle swimming. Which brings me to the amazing Olympic medalist swimmer Simone Manuel. Simone made history at the 2016 Rio Olympics by becoming the first Black Woman to win a gold medal for Team USA. This short documentary documents Simon’s journey through competitive swimming, her diagnosis (confirmed embodied knowledge) of overtraining syndrome, & redefining her relationship with the sport she loves with the hope of going to the Paris 2024 Olympics. Spoiler, she made it! This film also explores the tension of loving something that feels like it doesn’t always love you back. Especially when you find yourself being the only one in predominately white spaces. Furthermore, despite water being a source of levity, this doc highlights that within the water world, Black women’s wellness is still devalued & deprioritized making us vulnerable to harm.
Quotes That Resonated With Me
💙 “When she says she’s tired or she’s not feeling well, I don’t think she gets the attention or validation that this could actually be something more serious. So a lot of the times she really still is viewed as ‘you’re the strong person,’ ‘you’re gonna be fine.’” — Sharron Manuel (Simone’s mother)
💙 “I don’t get the empathy or understanding that I deserve.”
In conclusion, there is always a process of gathering the ways that marginalized folks relate to our natural environment & honoring them. I hesitate to use the word rediscover because if we listen & look closely they were never successfully buried.
Please remember if you choose to quote this piece, share this piece, or any piece on this publication to always CITE BLACK WOMEN. Please always include my name (Kay Brown (she/her)) and a link to the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath substack publication in your sharing practice.
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This is beautiful, so much is woven here that resonates.
"I hesitate to use the word rediscover because if we listen & look closely they were never successfully buried." I also deeply appreciated this quote, going to sit with it for a while. Thank you!
Everything about this piece is beautiful. I’m about to check out the short film on the surfer and I own ‘The Water Dancer’