The Weight of Water

We are born near water. It is the first mirror, the first boundary. As children, we lean over the edge, searching for something beneath the surface that we cannot name. We think if we look long enough, the water will tell us what it hides. It never does. It only reflects the sky, or the reeds, or our own faces, distorted by the ripple of a breath. There is a hunger in that gaze. A quiet, desperate need to understand the world before the world teaches us to look away. We spend our lives standing on the banks of things, waiting for the surface to break, waiting for the fish to rise, waiting for a sign that we are not alone in the cold. The reeds shift. The wind moves. We remain, leaning forward, held by the gravity of the unknown. What is it that we hope to find in the depths?

Yasuteru Kasano has taken this beautiful image titled Kids in Uros. It captures that same stillness, a moment of shared focus on the edge of a vast, high lake. Does the water hold the answers they are looking for?