The Water Compass

Returning to the Kingdom of the Well

In my last essay, I wrote about stepping out of the long current that had carried me and finding myself on a new, quiet shore. I thought the invitation was simply to linger there, to let the waters settle after a season of turbulence.

But stillness was only the first step. The next required height—rising to a place where the whole landscape of my life came into view, the way the patterns of a river make sense only when you step far enough back to see the whole basin.

This essay is what I learned on that summit.

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Two Rivers — The Kingdom of the Well & the Kingdom of the Drought

In my stillness, a friend recommended Suleika Jaouad’s memoir Between Two Kingdoms. It is a breathtaking story of living in the in-between, after surviving cancer in her early 20s, and learning to live a life no longer governed by survival. In her book, she quotes Susan Sontag from Illness as Metaphor:

“There are two kingdoms: the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick. We are all born dual citizens of both kingdoms and find ourselves in each at some point.”

Sontag means physical illness, but I saw her words through a spiritual lens.

There is the Kingdom of the Drought—the land of striving, bracing, and burnout. And there is the Kingdom of the Well—the land of living water, nourishment, and God.

I have carried dual citizenship both literally and spiritually. I was born in Brazil but never learned Portuguese. I belonged to a place whose language I couldn’t speak. Spiritually, the same was true.

We are all born into the Kingdom of the Well. Over time, many of us wander into the Drought.

Many of us stay there because we forget the language of the Well—softness, presence, receptivity. Years of heartbreak, chronic pain, and self-protection had cracked my own well. The water had receded. Survival had become my only fluent tongue.

But slowly, quietly, the language of the Well began returning through nature, scripture, intuition—like an ancient vocabulary rehydrating inside me.

Then the dreams began.

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Tidal Dreams — Washing Away the Old Self

Dream One: The Byrder Storm

I was living in a temporary hotel by the ocean—over-personalized with photographs and comfort, the way I had treated temporary identities as permanent homes.

A receptionist warned me of an approaching storm: a “Byrder”—half tornado, half flood. A breaker of branches, identities, and certainty. It reminded me of a line in a film I’d watched: that the branch a bird clings to must sometimes be cut so it can discover it can fly.

When the winds hit, my bike rack broke apart and scattered on top of my vehicle.
A tender symbol: the old way I carried myself—and everyone else—could no longer hold.

I tried to drive with the car doors open, in order to make room for a bike that wasn’t even there. I’ve spent years doing exactly that—making space for people or needs that never arrived, shaping myself around absence.

Then my old dog Jake appeared, pulling me urgently toward home. Even in the dream, my intuition was trying to rescue me.

Dream Two: The Ocean Takes What I Cannot Release

Two nights later, I returned to the same coastline. But this time, everything I had brought—my passport, my belongings, the proof of who I had been—was gone.

The ocean had taken it all. And I realized:

Water will take what you are still too afraid to release.

Dream Three: The Wetsuit and the Motorcycle

I stood in a wetsuit I didn’t want to wear, preparing to ride a motorcycle I didn’t want to drive—performing an identity I no longer fit. Then I found myself driving a borrowed car that suddenly broke down, with my wetsuit strewn across the windshield. The strong, self-sufficient “adventure girl” persona was now blocking my view forward.

The message was unmistakable:

It isn’t other people’s expectations that block me now. It is the identities I crafted to survive.

These dreams weren’t random. They were dissolving everything that could not enter the Kingdom of the Well.

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Divergent Currents — Elphaba & Glinda on the Screen

The final mirror arrived through Wicked: Part Two.

As I watched, I saw two versions of myself portrayed on screen:

• Elphaba — the bold, conviction-driven version of me who adventured fearlessly and fought for the things she cared about. The girl who would rather be true than chosen. But the one who burns herself out fighting alone.

• Glinda — the joyful, soft, uplifting, agreeable version of me. But one who learned to edit herself to fit.

For years, I was oscillating between these two selves. I wanted Elphaba’s authenticity but performed Glinda’s likability. I wanted to be admired for strength, but I longed simply to be allowed my softness.

It fractured me, until I could no longer ignore the split.

Glinda was admired for her light—but never truly seen because she didn’t allow herself to be. Elphaba was admired and desired for her grit and relentless fighting spirit—but could never be fully met. Being loved only for her resilience meant she was never allowed rest. She was cherished for her fire—valued for what kept her burning but never allowed the replenishment that only water could provide.

Elphaba cannot survive in the Kingdom of the Well. She was forged in drought. Stillness unravels her. The water literally causes her to dissolve, because Living Water always dissolves identities built on survival. But when the water finally washes Elphaba away, Glinda can rise into her truest self.

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The Water-Bearing Union — Partnership with the Well

When the credits rolled, my friend turned to me and said: “I feel bad for Glinda. She’s all alone now.”

Without thinking, I replied: “But she found her voice. And she has nature on her side.”

The moment the words left my mouth, they settled into place.

This is who I am becoming. The woman rising after both old identities wash away. Because the point was never to choose one or merge them. It was to integrate what each had taught me and rise into a new identity altogether—one spacious enough to hold the truth of both but defined by neither.

Not performing. Not rebelling. Simply aligned. Led by something deeper. Led by water.

This is the self who can re-enter the Kingdom of the Well and speak its language—the self capable of doing true good in the world because she is rooted, watered, and well. The self capable of partnership that is steady, reciprocal, present, and nourishing.

Because she has nature on her side. Because she is partnered with the living world. Because she is shaped by the water, not by the wasteland.

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The Return — Following the Water Compass

From the mountain’s height, I could finally see the whole watershed.

The dreams. The film. Jaouad’s memoir placed in my hands at just the right moment. And the river of my life to-date—every bend, every drought, every turning—has been guiding me back to the Well.

That is the Water Compass—the inner re-orientation toward the Living Water, and the name of the memoir I’ve been writing.

It’s a quiet, subtle, yet powerful pulse that never forces, never panics, never abandons. A current that draws us home. A way of moving through the world with the intelligence of water itself: steady, honest, patient, sure.

At the end of Wicked, someone asks Glinda if she is “good” now. She says, “Not yet… but I want to try.”

Something in me exhaled. Because that is exactly where I am.

The new self will not arrive all at once. She will emerge drop by drop, choice by choice—the way water reshapes stone.

And now that I’ve risen high enough to see clearly, the truth is simple:

Water knows the way.
It always has.

All we have to do is follow it.

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My brother has written another song that captures the essence of this essay, check it out: Let the River Flow.

Thanks for reading My Waterful Life!