If food is social and political, and is recently becoming a common language through which we talk about problems created in our environment, then water, the most basic and necessary of our needs, deserves attention; its purity, its source, its availability1.
When thinking about our relationship with water, three different ways that we interact with and perceive it come to mind: one, the hydrological cycle which illustrates an awe inspiring and complex life-sustaining force moving through our environment, two, a resource system, which incessantly pumps water in through the body of a city, (invisibly, bringing it for our needs and taking away our wastes,) and three, water as a commodity, marketed and advertised on the shelves in similar style to a thousand other essential and non-essential items, frequently more expensive than coca-cola or fuel, ironically. Let us float through all three, and see if this reverie brings perspective.