Donning the Law of the Day

Untroubled by the size of the thing — still water that can still be worked on.

1. 01Free from agitation, violence or storm
2. 02Still — as water with no wind on it
3. 03Undisturbed by noise or by news
4. 04Tranquil in mind while circumstances move
5. 05Serene; at rest without being asleep
6. 06Unruffled — nothing on the surface to read
7. 07Quiet in manner and unhurried in speech
8. 08Placid, peaceable, slow to alarm
9. 09Self-possessed in the middle of urgency
10. 10Windless; a pause in which work can be done
11. 11Soothing — her presence lowers the room
12. 12Sedate and even-tempered by habit, not by effort

Calm with capacity added — she can breathe, so she can hold a thing without heating it.

1. 01Moderately cold — the temperature that relieves
2. 02Composed under heat, pressure or provocation
3. 03Unexcited; not carried away by feeling
4. 04Deliberate — acting from decision, not from reaction
5. 05Refreshing; a cool room, a cool drink, a cool hand
6. 06Self-controlled in the face of insult
7. 07Assured and effortless in bearing
8. 08Level — able to reckon clearly mid-crisis
9. 09Reserved without being cold-hearted
10. 10Confident enough not to need to prove it

Gathered — every part of her assembled in one place and answering to one governor.

1. 01Composed and self-possessed, wholly in hand
2. 02Gathered together from many places into one
3. 03Assembled deliberately, as a collection is built
4. 04Recovered — having regained herself after a shock
5. 05Concentrated; nothing of her scattered elsewhere
6. 06Received in full, as a debt is collected
7. 07Curated — what she keeps was chosen, not accumulated
8. 08Cool-headed in the emergency, and afterward
9. 09Whole — no part of her left behind
10. 10Reserved, unhurried, and complete

To breathe out first — the release that makes room before anything is taken in.

1. 01To breathe out; to send breath forth
2. 02To release what has already been used
3. 03To let go of held pressure on purpose
4. 04To emit a vapor, a scent, a warmth
5. 05To empty the lungs so they can fill again
6. 06To sigh out tension rather than carry it
7. 07To give off, as the sea gives off air
8. 08To relieve oneself of a burden by expression
9. 09To make room before receiving
10. 10To finish a breath — nothing half-held

To wrap a thing entirely — possible only after the exhale, or it is panic.

1. 01To wrap up, cover on all sides, enclose
2. 02To surround completely, as air surrounds a body
3. 03To contain something without crushing it
4. 04To take in and hold, as a tide takes in a shore
5. 05To shelter by covering
6. 06To fold around — the letter inside the envelope
7. 07To encompass — to make room inside oneself
8. 08To absorb something into one's own atmosphere
9. 09To embrace fully rather than partially
10. 10To conceal and protect at once

The flow itself — out and in, without effort, exhale and envelope in one motion.

1. 01To flow back, as the tide from the shore
2. 02To recede and then return by law, not by luck
3. 03To decline in one place in order to rise in another
4. 04To move rhythmically rather than forcibly
5. 05To release without loss, because the tide comes back
6. 06To follow the appointed course of the water
7. 07To lower, so that what is on the seabed is revealed
8. 08To flow — continuous, unforced motion
9. 09To let go on a schedule instead of in a crisis
10. 10To breathe as an ocean breathes

A supply so continual that taking from it changes nothing.

1. 01The vast body of salt water covering the earth
2. 02An immensity — more than can be counted or spent
3. 03A supply that renews itself by tide, not by effort
4. 04Depth: most of what it holds is not yet seen
5. 05A carrier — it moves ships, trade and nations
6. 06A giver: it breathes out most of the world's oxygen
7. 07Abundance that arrives on a shore without invoice
8. 08The source of shells, salt, pearls and fish
9. 09A boundary and a road at the same time
10. 10Continual motion — it is never finished arriving

What she becomes — the fuel that lets everything around her live and burn clean.

1. 01The element that sustains breath and fire
2. 02The most abundant element in the earth's crust
3. 03What makes combustion possible — no oxygen, no flame
4. 04An invisible necessity; noticed only in its absence
5. 05The gift the ocean exhales into the air
6. 06That which every living thing must receive to continue
7. 07A carrier in the blood — it goes everywhere
8. 08Renewal at the cellular level
9. 09Figuratively: what gives a movement life and momentum
10. 10Freely available, and still the price of everything

Plural supply — Pacific, Atlantic: all the water, and everything living in it.

1. 01The great waters, named and governed, not merely one
2. 02Multiplied supply — more than one source of plenty
3. 03Territories of increase: trade routes, coasts, harbors
4. 04Everything the water carries — shells, salt, pearls, fish
5. 05Depths still unmapped: reserves not yet counted
6. 06Systems that feed each other by current
7. 07Weather-makers — they decide what falls on the land
8. 08A holding too large to hoard, only to steward
9. 09Generational wealth: what the tide keeps returning
10. 10Plenty as an estate rather than an event