Those of you who have been reading for a while know that I like water metaphors. So it was that yesterday, when I was at the public library reading the New York Times, a map on their Op Ed page drew my attention. Another patron was kind of breathing down my neck so I didn't have much time to look at it, but it was a map of the U.S. with all the parts of the country won by the president-elect "above water" and those won by Hillary Clinton "below water." (I have gone on their web site this morning and can't seem to find it, but it's worth a look.) Needless to say much of both the west and east coasts were gone, labelled as inlets or bays of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean or the Great Lakes, and then various cities across the country had, themselves, become "lakes." With one exception, everywhere I have ever lived in this country was under water. As I was walking home, I thought of the maps I have seen of the potential effects of sea rise due to global warming, and there seemed to be quite an overlap. I don't have a clue what that means. Just putting it out there.
One eerie coincidence last week, eerie to me anyway, was the fact that I just happened last Monday through Wednesday to be reading a novel about the lost city of Atlantis. It wasn't a very good book, and of course references to Atlantis are for all intents and purposes metaphors in themselves, but still...that sense of having been swamped continues to be quite visceral. New Zealand has just experienced an earthquake/tsunami in reality, and I hold them in the light.
What do you do when you find yourself under water that you didn't deliberately dive into? Try as quickly as possible to get your bearings then head to the surface. Find something to hold onto. And, once you have fully surfaced, keep breathing.
