on AN UNEXPECTED GIFT

I was exhausted. I'm not sure where I was coming from or going to, but my body led me up the stairs and directly to the fountains. My fountains, I call them.

"What are you doing?", she'll ask, through the phone. "Sitting at my fountains."
"Can you hear where I am?", he held the phone out for a moment, "Passing your fountains."
And once, when he was feeling snarky and unkind, his eyes rolled, "they aren't your fountains". The kind of insult that can only be given by someone who knows you so well.

As I felt myself walking toward them, seeking out my break from the day, a moment to refuel, I realized they were empty of people. There, in the dead of summer, with tourist season so high, photographs being taken nonstop at this very spot, were my fountains, empty. Waiting for me. A tiny little gift from the Universe, just for me. I took such delight in this, a smile spreading across my face, a bounce added to my walk. I circled around, pausing to press my hands onto it, closing my eyes, taking it in. This was a moment of magick.

If you want to know the truth, it's the smell. There's something about the mix of chlorine and fresh air and water that gives me every great childhood vacation memory all packed into one, with the extra bonus of countless hotel memories on top. Hotels where there was a water fixture in the center of the lobby, a pool that had a waterfall to hide behind, a water park, the lazy river, the trickling water next to the main entrance. That smell. The sound comes in a close second. All five senses are alive with water. You can't help but smell, hear, feel, see, and lord help us, taste it, when the wind blows it right into your face. When our senses are active, we become more present.

And there, in that moment of exhaustion, the fountain brought me back to being present. It knew what I needed right then. I told you, it is most definitely my fountain.