First, briefly, the basic navigation of this site: If you click on the “Findings” tab at the top, you’ll find posts that record my gathering of materials and first thoughts. Many of the “Findings” are photographs. In the Pages box at the right, you’ll find links to a longer text under the heading “The Narrative,” divided into numbered chapters. This narrative is a chronicle of my research and thinking process and the gradual development of my ideas. If you click on the tab labeled “The Narrative” above, you can find a brief synopsis of what’s in each chapter. (They are also linked on that page.)
In the Pages box at the right (and in a tab above), you will see a category called “Outcomes.” These are more finished pieces of writing (an essay and a couple of talks, so far) deriving from the work found in “Findings” and “The Narrative.” You can find more detail about them by clicking on “Outcomes” itself.
And now for some sense of what the heck is going on here, over all.
I’m an English professor at Simmons College, in Boston, and I was on sabbatical from July 2007 to September 2008. During my sabbatical I proposed to work on a book that would be about water, in some to-be-defined way. The basic idea was to take one non-expert (me) interested in issues around water and human survival, give this guy a year to do research (a sabbatical), and see what happened. I thought that the book, should it come to pass, might be as much about the learning process as about water itself. (This turned out to be true of “the narrative” on this website.) The original working title was “Follow the Water.”
I’ve been devoting much time and energy to thinking about man’s relationship with nature, and trying to get my head around the epistemology that an ecological worldview entails. For example, if we think about ourselves as part of the ecosystem, how does that affect the way we think about this scene?
I’d like to avoid prejudging the human role here. It’s easy to say that the scene above is ironic, but if we are a part of the ecosystem, it isn’t ironic, it just is. I’m interested in starting with “it is” rather than “it shouldn’t be” — and then I’ll see what happens.
I set up this site in order to publish the narrative of my learning process, and — on a parallel track — to focus more narrowly, and more visually, on the questions implicit in the title. In what I’m calling “Findings” I concentrate on those places, like the one in the header photo, where a man-made environment abuts a watery and in some sense natural one. I keep hoping to find and photograph and reflect upon more such places where water finds its way through the interstices in our domination of nature.
Lowry Pei
All photos are by yours truly unless credited to someone else.
The Water Margin by
Lowry Pei is licensed under a
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Yo Pei,
Interesting project and who knows where it goes. My relationship to water–images of floating around the South China Sea on a cruiser during Vietnam,unable to decide whether I dreaded more the idea of being shot or going back inside the ship to hang out with people I really found boring. Another image–traipsing through some god forsaken canyon in Utah, about 120 degrees and finding a wonderful little stream with water so cold it gave you a headache to look at it.
Hello to Vaughn.
Henry
Hi Lowry,
It’s great to see how this project is taking shape, and a great idea to post your work in progress on this blog. I was thinking that since humans are made of something like 80% water, the boundary or margin is in some ways non-existent, just as our relationship to nature, which we are also part of. Just a thought.
Steve
Lowry My Man,
Great project, full of possibilities. Off the top of my head:
1. Who would have thought five years ago that books about water would be everywhere by 2007–technical, philosophical, apocalyptico-alarmist, demographically passionate…?
2. Do you remember the lovely passage in ULYSSES when Bloom draws water to make cocoa for Stephen: “What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range admire?” Whereupon outflows a liquid paean to all the conceivable qualities of water.
3. I believe I spent about 50% of my summertime life from about age 11 to about 18 in (or under water). They called me Guppy. I have always regretted not having been born with gills.
4. As I have been writing this a dozen kids around the world have died of contaminated water. I wake up at night thinking about this. The most elegant solution is currently being perfected by Alexis Felder’s dad Kevin: a solar-powered ozone generator that will kill all living things in a large water tank. Think about it: maybe $150 a pop, enough clean water for an entire village. What are we waiting for?
5. It’s the driest August in New England since 1883. In Minnesota and Nicaragua they’ve been floating away to drown in an excess of the stuff. Are these two phenomena related. Like, duh.
Dr. Dave
Lowry,
One, loved reading the responses to your writing. Wonderful, especially the reminiscent portions about personal experiences the readers have had with water. (I think posting your writing in a forum like this–even though it IS on the internet!–is a great idea.) Two, the picture with the tree surrounded by cement is very thought-provoking. Nature (tree) enclosed, entrapped, contained, and controlled by Man. And, yet, the tree is still there, and what’s even better is that Man has placed a table under the tree so that he can ultimately be sheltered by Nature from above while trying to control it as well. I’m always happily surprised when I see a weed poking through a crack in cement or when the cement itself becomes broken and warped from below by the roots of some towering oak tree. At those moments, I always think “yes, Nature is making a little headway” (but, then again, if it’s a weed in my mother’s garden and I’ve been assigned to pull them up, I admittedly think “Really? Ah, come on. I just weeded this bed a week ago.”). It’s that classic push and pull. Nature vs. Man. Man pours cement over Nature’s dirt, creates streets near the ocean’s edges. Nature consumes streets in a flood of hurricane water and leaves dirt behind (with a lot more refuse as well). And then it all starts over again.
However, as we’ve been told time and again by numbers of wickedly intellectual scientists, it appears Man is winning this game of push and pull–and by winning will ultimately lose because with the death of Nature comes the death of Man since we are one and the same. Interesting (probably more “out there” than interesting but. . .) concept: Man is Nature but Man has been trying to conquer Nature for centuries. But, while conquering, is killing and therefore is actively pursuing his own destruction. Scariest part is maybe before you could have said Man was doing this all unknowingly–but now, no, there is only the certainty that he knows full well he’s seeking his own end. And, what does that mean exactly?
Okay, so now I’ve gone far away from the topic at hand, which is water, but, clearly, this topic that you’re researching is incredibly pertinent and can spin off in a million and one different directions (which I love–sidetracked thoughts are my favorite).
Looking forward to reading more of what you’ve discovered, ruminated on, come up with, etc.
Will write more soon!
Julianne
PS Personal memory of water. While in Ecuador, went snorkeling off of Isla de la Plata (desert island, no potable water, but inhabited with blue-footed boobies and red-throated frigates). Jumped off the side of the boat and into the cool water. So salty it stung the edges of my eyes and made my skin tingle. But, floating in the ocean that afternoon, feeling the silk-like softness of sea water slide over my arms and legs, really, there’s nothing like the sensation of being immersed in water. Then, on the drive back to my friend’s village, cutting through miles of electric green banana fields, there, on the side of the road, was the classis irrigation ditch. Murky, rainbowy gasoline-streaked water. All kinds of garbage (mostly plastics) floating in and heaped around the ditch. Not sure what those two images mean or the full extent of what they represent, but they came to mind when I was reading your “Pro. Pei” piece last night.
Julianne,
Far from “out there,” this is exactly where I think I’m aiming. Do human beings really “know full well they’re seeking their own end” (to take liberties with your pronouns)? To me it seems more likely that we believe, on some level, that we aren’t one and the same with nature — that we somehow stand outside it — a belief system that could prove fatal.
I’m glad to know you’ll write more soon. Me too.
LP
Hello!
This seems like a great project. The one (and possibly only thing) that I remember from AP English my senior year of high school is that “water equals the subconscious,” which I now question from time to time, but still, water seems both over- and underused in writing. It’s definitely worth exploring.
I agree with most of what Julianne said, and would like to add: man is the ultimate destroyer. I say this as I create words, I know, but it’s true. Not only is the cement holding in the tree, it’s also binding it, keeping it from growing beyond a certain point — essentially, eventually, destroying it. And yet, someone attempted to destroy the cement, the “aesthetics” of it anyways, which is man made (of course, how much aesthetic does cement actually have? ask the freshmen, I suppose). I always kind of hoped that man will completely destroy himself and his works before nature is utterly obliterated and obsolete.
But the control factor is huge, too, and maybe I’m misreading it. I’ve been sitting and staring at a computer for … most of the summer, so my academic muscles are a bit atrophied. Anyways, I look forward to reading your stuff!!
-Sarah
Lao Pei,
I love that photograph. The graffiti laced curb seems
like a place where I could sit with an old friend in late fall, when time seems to be abundant The tree makes me want to engage it in some kind of something…maybe push hands. Ever push hands with a tree? Try it. They actually do give after a while, which might translate as “you surrender to the power of delusion.”
This past weekend in Baltimore I took a ride down to the Procter & Gamble plant where I worked for fourteen years. & guess what!!! They–I suppose the P&G investment geniuses–have turned the place into a theme park day care center for the rich professionals who can afford the million dollar condos going up in the area. The official name of this Baltimore neighborhood is Locust Point. It sits right on the harbor across from Fells Point where Frederick Douglass lived until he escaped to the north.
They have rebuilt the dock. There was a young professional looking black man with his child in a carriage sitting on the dock. A lone person in a kayak was paddling his way along the edge.
After awhile I had to retrieve my lower jaw from the ground and try to take photos. I could not help but remember the place as a factory. Old man John Smithers and I used to eat lunch in the manager’s board room and look out over the water. He hunted black bear and sometimes had bear for lunch.
“Mike, you want some bear sandwich?”
“No thanks, John.”
& now it is a day care theme park with the buildings named after the brands of soap we made. The whole place is called Tide Point, named after the laundry detergent we made.
& it’s all on the harbor….the largest inland harbor on the east coast….water, o’ water. & where are the suds?
–Lao Wei “Afaa”
Hi Pei,
It’s lovely to see your project taking off! I am looking forward to checking out your preliminary writings as they unfold. (Why not go ahead and call it a first draft rather than a 0th, by the way? You can write as many drafts as you like and whatever the first thoughts are still count, I say.)
I think about water a lot in Tucson. The summer here melted my stick of deodorant and kept the cement buildings feeling hot long after sundown. Keeping water with me or having access to clean water was an utter necessity. Ice cubes were a luxury. We went through them as quickly as we could make them most days.
The question of where the water comes from, which I’ve never had a clear answer on (most people say the Colorado River, but it’s not universally agreed upon), and where it may keep coming from is pressing. I think about how the fact that I am living in a desert means that energy, including fossil fuels, is expended in order to make sure that I have drinkable water. I wonder how much I am contributing to a problem that I hope to help solve just by living here. And then I wonder, How can Tucson’s existence and dependence on outside water sources be reconciled?
These are some preliminary thoughts. Thank you so much for keeping me up to date on your work!
Hugs,
Becca (of the Rambo Headband)
i love the phrase ‘the ambiguous boundary zone between humans and water.’ i have tried for years to eliminate the space between myself and lake michigan
There is a book entitled “God is red” that you need to read before you go further. The author is Vine Deloria Jr. ISBN 1-55591-478-5 I’m sure you have some great ideas. These ideas go back over 10,000 years. You need to absorb them before you go on. Then please go on. If I can be of help call on me. Other folk please look at my website before you write me off. The host of this site sought me out. There is much to be done here. Let’s work together.
I have often wondered if we become the water we drink. California water from the Sierras, Kansas Water from the Kaw, Missouri water from the Mo, Michigan water from the Big Lake, deep glacial water from wells. Does distilled water in bottles change us in some way, separate us from our possibly threatened but defining local water mother? I have learned the immediacy of water, how fast it becomes us, how desperate we are without it. Recently, an old friend had just ended a story, slumped in his chair, and during the time before the EMT I took vital signs, measured pulse. It took me back to my now dead parents. The last moments are always a defined by air and water. The last memory I will have of Rich will be his heartbeat, steady, solid. Water moving in an ancient arterial stream. We are a continuum of canals and lakes and streams, we echo the pulses of life with the passage of water. How rare it is. Is water. Is life. Thanks Lowry.
Dear Pei,
My first impression when I read about your project was that it sounded eccentric. Then, after thinking a little more (always a good idea) I realized, “What is so eccentric about water, for heaven’s sake?” I concur with the other comments, and would only add two things: 1) that for desert dwellers especially, water is more valuable than gold (and I read somewhere could one day be as expensive), and 2) here in Israel, I have heard that the public mood is always linked to the water level in the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee): when the water level is high, people are happy, and when it’s low, discontent reigns.
B’hatzlacha (good luck),
Jennifer
Lowry:
The photographs are beautiful and thought provoking. I enjoyed the reflective narrative piece…it really served to enhance the photographs, not diminish them. You website is fantastic. I will be checking back…reading your material made me realize that I have missed your “voice”.
Hey Lowry, this Sunday morning in Oxaca, I am browsing through the narrative. It did rain here yesterday and one of your readers comments about the obvious 80 perecnt of our make up is water inextricably connect us with water, and minerials, inside and outside of us as one. Nice theme to think about as when sickness occurs within and without and when health is the desireable when each, inside and out cares and takes care of the other side !
Salude
carl