Why I Look Like A Tomato

My staff members say that I look like a cantaloupe instead of a tomato. But I think I look like a tomato—even if I do have on an orange shirt with seed-like holes in it. “Why do you look like a tomato?” you might ask. “Because I went floating on the lake without sunscreen,” I would say. “And I loved it.”

I’ve lived by the lake for two and a half years now, but I hadn’t been into the water until this weekend. Thanks to some adventurous friends who showed up at my apartment and waned to swim in the lake, I finally ventured into her waters…and it was awesome.

Dressed in my orange fish bathing suit and a bright orange life jacket, carrying a lovely blue noodle, I jumped into the lake’s refreshingly cool-warm waters and floated. I can’t float without a floatation device. After trying many, many times and even going through informal floatation lessons, I just can’t get my body to float. My butt sinks. But not with a life jacket and a nooooodle!

I wish that I could adequately describe how I felt floating on the lake yesterday. For someone who is always thinking and connecting one piece of the world to another and for someone who has tremendous difficulties relaxing, I floatingly sank into a place of total rest and peace as I put my complete trust in those floatation devices to keep me in contact with oxygen. I let the water take me where it would. Every once in awhile, a friend would gently grab my arm or leg and steer me back toward the dock so that I didn’t float too far away. But for the most part, it was just me and the water in this lovely, freeing unison of life. One of my friends said that I looked like I was waking up each time I sat up to be social. I said that I’d felt like I was waking up. In those moments, I had been completely relaxed, thinking of nothing but the present, feeling the sun’s warmth on my skin, silently praising God for the amazingly beautiful day and experience and the feeling that I was floating on God’s unfailing love. It was like nothing I can describe.

And so…today…I look like a tomato. Or cantaloupe. Either way. I’m a very happy tomato or cantaloupe who is extremely grateful for her apartment on the lake, her wonderful landlords, her adventurous friends, turtles, fish, water, lifejackets, noodles, and sunscreen (even when I don’t use it, get burnt, and end up looking like a tomato).