Glory Ho

I grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River. Turtles perched on the stump we used to measure the water, ducklings dawdled on our bonfire-ashed beach and boats always waved as they went by. We swam off the dock, slithered between the fish and sandbagged during the floods. But the river’s real character was always hiding beneath the surface. What John Irving referred to as the UnderToad, my parents called the Current. Lurking between the buoys and hidden at the edges of a barge, it was stronger than my father and had more energy than a dozen third graders. Every summer, before Days of Our Lives began, we’d listen to stories of drownings on the noon news as we ate our macaroni and cheese. Lanky bare-chested boys whose parents had failed to instill a sense of fear in them. Kids who never went to swimming lessons and would jump over craggy cliffs and overpasses into deceivingly shallow streams or soft quarries of thick sunshine.

So as a matter of survival amid river recreation, I was enrolled in swimming lessons from an early age. I completed every drill, took every test and made sure Annie was okay. I even became a lifeguard. I was never a particularly strong swimmer—not like my Pisces husband, the silver fish you see weaving calmly and placidly through your dreams–but I could take on the mighty Mississippi if necessary.

Over the years, I’ve shivered along the English channel, splashed through the Pacific, ferried across the Aegean, sunbathed at the Black Sea and SCUBA dove in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet despite these visits, the ocean and I have never really become great friends. Sure, it made for a great vacation. There’s nothing like white sand, seagulls and a sunset to make you fell you’re in a music video. But the ocean’s salt always stung. It’s utter endlessness frightened me. Mostly, the sea was too much of a snob. I knew it was available only on vacation and there was always quite a cover charge. Who needed the ocean’s elitist club when I had my own river pub?

The Dead Sea was no exception. While my own Mississippi swallowed mud, seaweed, catfish and sand with a strong stomach, retaining a solid black-and-blue collar, the Dead Sea boasted a sunlit, aquamarine outfit and a supportive entourage of desert and palms. False. A lot like the set of a film where Elvis and Shelly Fabares hook up.

Then there was character. The Mississippi’s history was hard-earned, uniting and supporting America’s Midwest, enchanting Mr. Twain, trickling from Minnesota to Ponchetrain and bobbing with crops which fueled farmer’s lives. Although the Dead Sea, at 420 meters below sea level and wandering in eddies and erratic waves, supported head-scarfed grandmothers who welcomed the natural laundromat, it formed a prickly border between Israel and Jordan—one that was rarely crossed.

And going in was weird. With a rocky beach, the shore was a basket of barbed wire. When bathed in, it shrunk away, carrying me with awkward outstretched arms like a cousin-less male house-guest holds a newborn. When hugged, its thick white grits cut without mercy, riding through my nostrils stinging my throat and burrowing like tapeworms into the buds of my freshly shaved legs.

But the Dead Sea and the Mississippi did have one thing in common. They were both famous for mud. Though not celebrated, the Mississippi was muddy in a way that made you care less about keeping clean. The Dead Sea’s mud sat, as if on a picky child’s plate–next to, but not touching the wavy pastel colors of the water. It’s a mud known for therapeutic properties, enriched with healing minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium bromide and organic remains of plants and animals. Some claim it helps to increase the supply of oxygen to the skin tissues and removes toxins from the body.

Whatever it does, I hope it worked on us.