One morning I smoked weed before going to aqua class at my local gym. I love how cannabis lets me reach my imagination in ways I’ve almost forgotten. In class, the teacher expects everyone to use the yellow and blue hand weights, and I never do. Moving the water with my body, creating tidal waves with my hands and arms, is part of the play that I love, and the plastic dumbbells feel awkward and cold. Encouraging fully extended grace in my body is much more exciting to me than any kind of mechanically paced work-out.

This day, super high and in the water, I felt like I was a sea creature experiencing all the ways that water moves: coral undulating in tide pools, darting fish, whirling under water tornadoes, geysers bubbling up, the generous expansion and contraction of anemones and slow-moving beings responding to the moon. I went with it and felt like a kind of archetypal ocean being; letting elemental water flow and splash through me, with the help of pot. It was enchanting the way play is when you are little, fully intent and open to waves of delight. The teacher said at the end of class, “I appreciate you, you’re here to work.” Thank you, I told her, but actually I thought: I’m here to play!

~ Jill