I woke this morning to leaden skies and rain. It has rained pretty much all day on and off.
When I was a little girl and it rained, my mum would find a big cardboard box and put it outside for me to sit in. I had to wait for the rain to get deep enough to sail me away. I loved it. The smell of damp cardboard, a belly full of potential and the insistent drumming of the rain on the lid of my unseaworthy vessel. Me, huddled inside in the warm darkness, waiting for the adventure to begin. It felt like magic.
It feels a bit like that on the boat, only I’m ahead of the curve because I’m already afloat. I love the sound of the rain on the metal roof. I love how inky the water in the marina gets when the clouds mass overhead and the way the raindrops make dark, shimmering circles on the surface of the water like a Japanese woodcut. The damp, green smell of the water rises up to meet you as the rain comes down and I am transported.
It is a very different feeling living on a boat as opposed to living on land. There is a clear sense of being on the meniscus of the water, a buoyancy that I feel that gives a certain springy quality to life. As I’m pottering about I’m quite often struck by it and the word that most comes to mind is that I feel cradled. I feel very safe here. I didn’t realise until I got here how unsafe I felt before. It’s strange and lovely. Like an unexpected gift.
Even when your feet are firmly on the ground, you are never very far away from water here. The Thames curves through the area in a great sweep and there are myriad docks and basins that intersect and carve up the land around. Today I walked a different way out of the marina and came across a swing bridge that separated the Greenwich Peninsula from Canary Wharf. Standing on the bridge, facing Canary Wharf you could see a mighty set of lock gates being pummelled by the vast weight of the river at high tide. To one side, they are redeveloping an area called Wood Wharf and there are great hoses running from the building site to the river, draining all the pilings and foundation holes.
I found it intensely exciting. Everything is in motion. Flux is the only constant. It reminds me that any sense of power I think I have is nonsense when compared to the power of the water. Those gates and pumps are only going to keep the water out for so long. Eventually everything has to bend to its will, either as a trickle or a roar. The only thing that I can learn to do is float.