Susan LaffertyThis week I’ve walked on the soft, white sand of Pensacola Beach and stared out at the deep blue and aqua waters of the Gulf. I’ve relaxed, breathed in the ocean breezes. Watched sandpipers race the tide.
My first memory of feeling sand between my toes was a 1964 family vacation in Bali. We loaded up our 1958 Chevrolet station wagon in Surabaya early in the morning and drove across East Java to the ferry at Ketapang, just north of Banyuwangi.
We returned to Delhi the summer of 2012 and all I could see was the dust. It coated every leaf on every tree. It covered all surfaces outside and inside. A thorough cleaning of our apartment yielded little evidence of the hard work. A few hours later I was wiping off another fine layer of the stuff.
Our first home in Bandung, Indonesia, was on a street called Rancaherang. When I told people where we lived, they would nod knowingly and say, “Ah, mata air dari batu”—the source of water that comes from the rock.
It was a known source of pure water that came from somewhere deep within the earth. Thirst-quenching, garden-drenching water. Always flowing, always abundant.
And there was no water shortage in that whole neighborhood. In fact, it started as a stream in our yard, flowed through a pond on the side of our house and into a stream that ran down to the next house. And on to the next house after that, and so on.
Each yard had a pond of fish and ever-flowing water.