woman standing in ocean

Me at Tybee Island, GA, mid-’80s

 

Today is Day 6 of Writing Our Stories. 

Today’s prompt: bodies of water

This should be an easy one, right? Surely everyone has a personal connection with a stream or a river, a pond or a lake, or an ocean.

I didn’t see or step foot in an ocean until I was about 25. But that’s what happens when you live in a landlocked state, more than a thousand miles from the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

However, I found bodies of water elsewhere. And the stories I could write just about water are seemingly endless. 

  • Hanging out at the Arkansas River, watching the high school boys jump off the bridge into the water (the Arkansas had water in it back then)
  • Swimming in the sand pit – even though a Pawnee Rock boy had drowned in a sand pit and they were well known danger zones. 
  • Learning to water ski at Lake Perry on April 22, 1978 because a friend had just purchased a ski boat. (Do you know how cold Kansas lake water is in April?)
  • Seeing the ocean for the first time. My mom had moved to Savannah and she took me to Tybee Island. I could write about the incredible seafood restaurants there, or watching the gigantic container ships come up the Savannah River to the port. 
  • Annual family campouts with Dave’s family at various Kansas lakes. Each year they would have a contest in which they would make something: a solar-powered coffee pot one year, a water balloon launcher the next, then a kite contest, etc. 

What are your best stories involving bodies of water? Write one today!

Go get ‘em!
Cheryl 

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