The word is water.

If you say water, I think sea. It brings childhood memories of my recently lost father, of summers in the sea, of salt drying up on your skin in the hot summer sun.

Have you ever seen your feet turn wavy when you step into water? Water allows us into its reality, but we pay a sensory price. Under water's laws, our sight loses its sharpness, our hearing is muffled, we move slow and weightlessly. I often have dreams in which I can move in the dry like I can move in water. I am always sad to discover I can't when I wake up.

From the shore, water still gets to me. It is a big body of water that quiets my mind. But it is a big body of water that terrifies me. Can the terror and the quiet of water's vastness be felt within paper? Fabric? In a room?