One of the many possible ways

to describe a life

would be as a series of encounters

with various bodies of water.

 

Time spent in, on, under, or near water

interspersed with

the periods spent thinking about

where, when, and how to reach the next.

My first body of water,

of course,

was experienced as a zygote

in my mother’s womb.

And the last

— at least as I now imagine it —

will be in the form of

ashes,

cast over the Pacific.

 

In between,

I’ve been fascinated by

and privileged to know

many ponds,

tanks,

rivers,

bottles,

pools,

lakes,

streams,

buckets,

waterfalls,

quarries,

tubs,

mists,

oceans,

downpours,

and puddles.

 

As children we delight in water.

As we grow older,

water also becomes the matrix for

sport, relaxation, and romance.

 

My parents took me to the

Caribbean as a small child.

 

The photos from that trip

feel so familiar that

I can still feel the day.

 

Sitting on the beach next to the ocean,

smiling in the Bahamian sun.

 

I believe my happy memories of the sea

were carried forward

by those cherished, faded photographs.

 

Soon after that trip,

prior to my third birthday,

I had a vivid dream in anticipation

of a party.

 

At the party in my dream

we all sat at a round table

under the peach tree

in my backyard in

Westwood, New Jersey.

 

Everyone received a birthday gift.

 

We were served tea,

and at the bottom of the teacup

were iron figurines.

 

Somehow,

we each became very small

and the cups became enormous

as we dove down to the bottom

to find and retrieve our gift.

 

My friend Steve got a race car.

 

Rusty’s was a dog.

 

Mine was a black bear standing

on all four legs.

 

I loved that dream

—so much so that I tried to dream it again

every night before going to sleep.

 

And every time I saw a bear,

or a cast-iron car or dog,

or a cup of tea,

I thought of my dream.

 

That went on for months,

dreaming and daydreaming,

and wanting to dream

about diving

into a teacup

to retrieve an iron bear.

 

At seven years of age

I became more curious

about being adopted.

 

Questions just seemed to lead

to more questions

and eventually a driven inquiry

into the basics of human genetics.

 

That year I was afflicted with a severe case

of spinal meningitis and hospitalized.

 

It was then that I also became

intimately familiar with

— and curious about —

my own nervous system.

 

My adoptive mother was a nurse,

and texts and manuals from

nursing school days

became my scripture.

 

Science, exploration, medicine,

and the existence of occupations

related to helping people heal

formed up as a seed in my mind.

 

In high school

my favorite weekend activity

was to push off the shore at night

in a canoe

with just a box of Pop-Tarts,

a fishing pole,

and Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky.

 

Fish or no fish, the solitude

of night drifting

was an epic escape.

 

A few years later,

in college at DePauw University,

I began to wonder,

more formally, as a young student

of science,

about why I liked water so much.

 

Snorkeling in Bowman Pond on campus

and scuba diving in Indiana’s quarries

were somewhat unusual activities.

 

Exploring the many creeks,

rivers,

and lakes

of the Midwest,

I also began to explore

the human brain,

somewhat by accident.

 

My sophomore year

I was invited by the university chaplain

to provide guitar lessons as a volunteer

at a local nursing home in town.

 

I obliged

and ended up spending

Wednesday afternoons

for eight months

playing music with Barbara Daugherty,

a woman who had lost her memory

—including her ability to play guitar —

in an automobile accident fifteen years prior,

when she herself was a sophomore in college.

 

The music lessons seemed

to trigger once-lost memories,

which once flowing often continued.

 

The nurses were impressed.

 

I was too, and curious.

 

I’d return to campus

and try to learn more about

the brain–music connection

from professors and journals,

without much luck.

 

These days a Google search

would turn up endless publications

on the topic.

 

But in 1986 that wasn’t the case.

 

I logged the early brush with music therapy

deep in my memory.

 

At Duke University

I studied economics,

public policy,

and decision science.

 

But our science and policy texts

were incapable of including the feeling

of sitting at the bottom of a quarry,

the physiology of retrieved

memories and nostalgia,

or the creative elixir

of floating beneath the stars to Swan Lake.

 

I proposed to Dana underwater

off the coast of Cabo Pulmo, Mexico.

 

I wordlessly slipped

a sea-turtle-shaped ring

onto her finger.

 

As parents of Grayce and Julia,

our favorite moments together

involve water.

 

After two decades

working as a marine biologist

studying sea turtles,

the brain-on-water theme

remained on my mind.

 

In fact, my curiosity

about neuroscience

often informed our approach

to rebuilding sea turtle populations,

one human at a time.

 

In 2009 the Pew Marine Fellows program

generously nominated me

for one of their annual awards,

as they had a few years prior.

 

The first time I had proposed

a sea turtle project.

 

This time I proposed

looking into the science

behind our emotional connection to water.

 

I figured that if the pull of water

could guide my life so far

—as well as that of many, if not most,

of my colleagues—

those emotions might also be

worth knowing more about.

 

As a non-neuroscientist

I composed a rather good proposal

about neuroconservation

and submitted it to Pew.

 

The first round (sea turtles)

I had been denied the fellowship because

I was “too young.”

 

This time the response was “too creative.”

 

Despite these setbacks,

both projects have moved forward,

and I have greatly enjoyed the

many collaborations

and contributions

that have come from them.

 

Now I am neither too young

nor too creative.

 

But I am patient,

persistent,

and truly enamored.

 

This book is the result of that mix:

a life driven by a love of water,

some patience and persistence,

and a lot of collaboration and conversation

with fellow water lovers and scientists,

a truly excellent group of people.

 

Near the end of The Ocean of Life,

his thorough and insightful treatment of

the history of ocean use and overuse,

marine biologist Callum Roberts describes

some of the fundamental ingredients needed

for fixing what’s broken on our blue planet:

“It is essential for ocean life

and our own

that we transform ourselves

from being a species

that uses up its resources

to one that cherishes and nurtures them.”

 

The same can be said

for our planet’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands,

as well as its forests and prairies.

 

But if this is the emotional foundation

of our future,

insights into what it means

to “cherish and nourish”

could be useful indeed.

 

How do these Blue-Minded emotions work?

 

What are they made of, and how do we make more?

 

Those are some of the

fundamental questions

of neuroconservation.

 

Roberts continues,

“People have a deep emotional connection

to the sea.

 

The oceans inspire, thrill, and soothe us.

 

Some think we owe our clever brains

and the success they brought

to our ancestors’ close link to the sea.

 

But our relationship with the sea stretches back

through time

much further than this:

all the way to the origins of life itself.

We are creatures of the ocean.”

 

Clearly, creating more protection

and restoration

will require that we better appreciate

and understand

the science behind,

and what goes into,

the mysterious elixir called inspiration.

 

Combined with pinches of empathy,

nostalgia,

responsibility,

gratitude,

and a big scoop of love

for our waters,

we have a fighting chance

to get this right.

 

You have to do it because

you can’t stand not to.

That’s the best reason to do anything.

— LINDA RONSTADT

 

Truth be known,

I tried my hardest to give this project away

to those with better training,

better brains,

better resumes for the job.

 

There were no takers.

 

So, I build upon what I have learned

about people and water

from my teachers:

Herman Melville,

Joshua Slocum,

Chuy Lucero,

Loren Eiseley,

Jacques Cousteau,

Wade Hazel,

Pablo Neruda,

Juan de la Cruz Villalejos,

Sylvia Earle,

Michael Orbach,

and Mary Oliver.

 

Mostly, we’ve connected the dots

that we could find

and worked to make the best sense

of the patterns that emerged.

 

The goal has been less

about providing concrete answers

and more about asking new questions

— questions that hopefully,

now in your capable hands,

lead to creative new ways of

living well together

on our water planet.

 

Back in 2005,

the late author David Foster Wallace

opened his commencement speech

at Kenyon College with a story about three fish:

“There are these two young fish swimming along

and they happen to meet an older fish

swimming the other way,

who nods at them and says

‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’

 

And the two young fish swim on for a bit,

and then eventually one of them

looks over at the other

and goes,

‘What the hell is water?’ ”

 

That’s the fundamental question

that started my own journey.

 

What is water?

 

Why are we humans so enthralled by it?

 

And why is this question so obvious

and important,

yet so hard to adequately answer?

 

Later in his speech,

Wallace told the graduating class

that education should be based

on simple awareness:

“Awareness of what is so real and essential,

so hidden in plain sight all around us,

all the time,

that we have to keep reminding

ourselves over and over:

‘This is water.’ ”

 

This book is an attempt

to start a conversation

about water

based on new questions and new learnings.

 

I hope to bring

to our simple awareness

the reality and essence

— and beauty —

of this small blue marble

we live, move, and love upon.

 

Even though it’s hidden in plain sight.

 

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