The Salt on the Skin

The air before a storm tastes of wet iron and crushed river reeds. It is a heavy, humid thickness that clings to the back of the throat, demanding you swallow the atmosphere whole. I remember the feeling of water against my palms—not the cool, polite water of a tap, but the churning, muscular resistance of a river that has been woken up. There is a vibration that travels from the surface of the water, through the wood of a hull, and straight into the marrow of your bones. It is the hum of collective effort, the smell of sweat mingling with the sharp, metallic tang of deep, dark currents. We are always waiting for the signal, for the moment when the body stops being an individual and becomes a single, straining pulse. When the tension snaps, where does the stillness go? Does it dissolve into the spray, or does it settle into the silt at the bottom of the world?

Prasanth Chandran has captured this visceral pull in his image titled The Spectator and the Competitor. It reminds me that we are all either rowing the boat or watching the wake. Which side of the water are you standing on today?