The View from a Drawbridge

The random musings of an autistic bridgetender with entirely too much time on her hands.

The Zen of Water

Water sounds like peace to me.

Instead of blogging, I have been staring at my customized background on the Microsoft Edge browser here at work. It’s called Water Bubble, and I find it mesmerizing. It’s just a bubble, fluctuating. I could watch it for hours.

You can buy this water bubble video from Shutterstock here, for 79 bucks. While I’d say it is worth every penny, even I don’t advocate the use of that many pennies for something that, I promise you, will turn into a major time suck, albeit a comforting one.

Besides, you can Google water bubble videos and find a lot of free ones, such as these available on Freepik. They’re not quite as satisfying as the pricey one, but they do have a calming effect on an overactive brain. I find myself seeking out these calming effects more and more.

I’m not like Bubbles from Finding Nemo. Encountering bubbles doesn’t excite and energize me. Gazing at them kind of makes me feel like a bubble myself, floating through water, completely encapsulated, just doing my thing.

Water, in general, is very soothing to me. A downpour, or the sound of waves crashing on a beach, can knock me out like no other. They make me sleep so soundly that I don’t even wrinkle the sheets.

A babbling brook or a gentle fountain sounds like peace to me. I can stare at light dancing in a swimming pool as if it’s the most engrossing movie I’ve ever seen. And aquariums? Don’t even get me started.

My exercise of choice is swimming. I feel embraced and protected when surrounded by water. It’s probably equivalent to a thunder shirt on a dog. It’s my safe place. I also love to snorkel for that same reason. (That, and any exercise that doesn’t involve sweat is alright by me.)

I didn’t realize how often I resisted these types of self-soothing things until I got my autism diagnosis about 6 months ago. My whole life, I’ve been trying really hard not to look like a freak. Daydreaming my life away while gazing at water would definitely make me stand out in a more active, less focused crowd.

But now I’m leaning into these things. I’m seeking them out. I’m making time for them. They feel good and they do me no harm. I’m even considering aquamation when the time comes for me to burble off to the great beyond.

Having said that, I think I’ll go back to my trance. I’m starting to care a whole lot less about what other people think of me. It’s quite liberating.

Photo courtesy of my friend Joy. Thanks!

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9 responses to “The Zen of Water”

  1. Lyn Avatar
    Lyn

    This is one of the videos I use to self sooth. I’ve a long playlist of ocean, rain and water related sights and sounds. https://explore.org/livecams/oceans/seajelly-cam …with music and
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRyf_SL4f9U …without.
    As a little child I’d lay underwater, eyes opened, watching the light filter and fracture through. My parents put me in swimming lessons because I behaved like a fish around water. I felt safe, like you, at peace in and around it. I love that it mutes loud noises and bright lights yet has it’s own soothing song and sights. That feeling of floating free from gravity, in it, is like home and it’s creatures are long lost kin. Maybe we’re lost mermaids just missing home. 🧜‍♀️

    Reply
    1. The View from a Drawbridge Avatar
      The View from a Drawbridge

      I could see myself being a mermaid if the stereotype of mermaids wasn’t such a sexualized thing. Why couldn’t we be swimming about, minding our own mer-business, reading our mer-books and taking our mer-naps, without a care in the world about finding clamshells to turn into bras, or seducing isolated humans?

      Reply
      1. Lyn Avatar
        Lyn

        I ignore the stereotypes, which are obviously fantasy. We are the real mermaids. On land we are awkward and struggle to fit in but in water we thrive as confident, independent, unique individuals. Never undrunderstood why Ariel longed to be human.🙂

      2. The View from a Drawbridge Avatar
        The View from a Drawbridge

        Me neither! She made the age-old mistake of settling for less to be with some guy, in my opinion.

    2. The View from a Drawbridge Avatar
      The View from a Drawbridge

      And, as per usual, excellently! Why did I never think of jellyfish? They’re beautiful and calming.

      Reply
      1. Lyn Avatar
        Lyn

        Please don’t mind the typo. Using a mouse to type and it keeps glitching, adding letters on it’s own. Between that and inaccurate autocorrections, I spend more time proofreading and correcting that snail mail would be quicker. 😕

      2. The View from a Drawbridge Avatar
        The View from a Drawbridge

        I hear you. Sometimes I use the voice text option, but that requires copious proofreading as well.

  2. Angiportus Librarysaver Avatar
    Angiportus Librarysaver

    Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier…My way of finding water calming is to drink some at need. I don’t have quite the right neurology to swim–deft as I am at some other physical things–so I can’t see it quite the same way as you–but for me, my most vivid water memories involve seeing a river in full spate. It gives one a real start to come upon it while thinking of something else and see it up higher than expected–plumb spooky, in fact, even more so if it remains calm. When it is one of those faster ones that transform into a surging roil of waves and whites and whorls, carrying big trees as if they were toothpicks–well, I read all about this in geology class and I was still flabbergasted. It was an amazing and wonderful sight, and I so wish that no one ever had to be harmed by phenomena such as this.
    The other aqueous thing I like? Swamps. Ever since I was a kid. And I saved one once, by joining in asking the city to buy it. Wetlands rule.

    Reply
    1. The View from a Drawbridge Avatar
      The View from a Drawbridge

      Nature is astounding. I wish people gave it more respect, because when all is said and done, it’s always going to prevail.
      Thank you for being the saver of swamps and libraries! YOU rule.
      Swamps are cool, but I do have a little trauma associated with them. We went on a field trip in elementary school where we were taken on a tour of a swamp with an environmentalist as our guide, and somehow I was the only one to step into the quicksand, up to my waist. Needless to say I freaked out. They had to pull me out, and I was covered with mud and had lost one of my shoes. It was a rather humiliating (and wet) ride home. So I have a healthy respect for swamps now, but I try to keep them at a distance.

      Reply

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