Water of life

No, I'm not talking about whiskey, Scottish or Irish or whatever.
I'm writing about how I really, really don't like being wet.

This spring, we have been living with deluges of rain. At least every other day, here in Central New Jersey, the weather has been soggy, sometimes foggy, but annoyingly wet. 

Okay, it isn't as if I have a chance of melting if I go out in the rain. Far from it. (If it could happen, brother, I'd be standing outside right now, dissolving in the damp.)

But, I don't like being wet. 
Showering every day is a chore for me. Just stepping into the shower, that first step, pains me mentally. I have to get up the gumption to step into the shower, and I do every day voluntarily, because being clean is important.
However, diving into a pool, our pool, is sheer insanity.
The five times I have been in our swimming pool, I have eased in slowly...avoiding all splashing, not going in so my hair gets wet. The water, even if the day is scorching and the pool water is cool, gives me the creeps.

When I was young, we'd take any chance we had to go to Lake Hopatcong or the pool at Coddington Park in Bound Brook or any chance to go swimming with friends or relatives. My father found an old swimming hole somewhere in probably Hillsborough...it is probably well developed by now...but it was dirty water, full of other kids...even had a rope hanging off an ancient tree. We went there several times, crowded as it was, because it was a place to cool off.
Closer than Lake Hopatcong.
Closer than the Atlantic Ocean.

Do not get me wrong. I love the ocean. I can sit and watch the waves for hours on end. I just have no desire to stand in it and get bashed about by waves.

I used to love watching surfers try to ride their boards in the skimpy Lavalette waves. Cute guys, obviously.

But being dragged under, eating sand, getting feet tickled by weird fish and crabs...not me.

So, if I tell you how important the ocean is to me, you might snicker and think I am a fraud.
I like trees, but I don't like camping in deserted forests.
I like the smell of hay, but I don't want to live on a farm or work on one.

Just knowing the ocean is there, around my coastline, is fine. Knowing that I can get clean in a shower is also fine.
Remembering a kid with a bloodsucker attached to his skinny chest while swimming in a place somewhere in the nearby hills, is disturbing. 
Maybe that's why I don't dive in. Maybe that's part of my chickenshit psyche. Who knows.

Maybe, and this is just a perhaps, I have cat DNA.