Where Water Teases and Unsettles: Chasing the blue beneath a gray reality

The first time I contemplated water, I was probably seven. That summer, we traveled to Ghebi, in Racha. I remember standing by the edge of the Rioni River with my aunt. It was then that I felt uncertain fear for the first time. In the sweltering July heat, the river flowed endlessly, cooling my bare feet while unsettling my heart. I couldn’t fathom how it never stopped, nor could I understand where it was so restlessly rushing towards.

A long void followed.

In September 2019, I lay in the woods of Ghebi. A stream trickled at my feet, moving slowly through its brown, slightly muddied bed. This gentle, coquettish water first caressed my toes, then beckoned me to reach out and grasp it, before finally flowing down my throat from my soil-stained palms.

- But isn’t it dirty?

- Everything is pure here.

It really was pure.

In 2020, I stood by the same river once again, still barefoot. Unlike the mundane sound of tap water, the roar of the Rioni felt like the furious shout of an angry Greek god. That year, my house in Ghebi was flooded. And that year, I noticed the plastic bottles rotting along the riverbanks for the first time.

In October of that same year, a continuous protest began to save this very river valley from the construction of a 433 MW hydroelectric power plant. Once again, I felt fear – or rather, I worried. I worried for my beloved, terrifying river. And this concern felt nothing like the initial fear of a seven-year-old schoolgirl encountering water for the first time.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a sensation born from a blurred vision of the future.^[1] When we begin to contemplate the future, the mind gathers information stored through life experiences and translates it into sensations. However, the formation of a specific feeling – in this case, anxiety – is shaped not only by our relationship with the world as independent beings but also by every object and event that surrounds us.^[2] My first thoughts about water were directly linked to explaining this very phenomenon. My episodic memory^[3], which is responsible for the formation of sensations, recalled past thoughts of water and linked them to the anticipation of potential harm from the construction of the massive hydroelectric power plant. This process shaped a new orientation toward the future – giving rise to anxiety: a sensation born from the uncertain fate of the Rioni River.

Why do we grieve?

The environment in which a person operates as an independent agent is reflected not only in their physiological state but in their emotional landscape as well. To grieve for the environment is a natural human condition. Through this grief, one reflects not just on the objects within that environment, but on oneself, on the future, and on one’s own place within that future.

Environment does not imply a detached collection of natural elements, but a complete ecosystem whose members are likewise characterized by agency – they possess vitality, they are active, and they forge connections both with one another and the human world. The relationship between humans and nature is reciprocal. Both sides of this natural bond – which, in reality, constitute a single whole – act upon each other, shaping one another’s actions and influencing the very essence of being.^[4]

When do we begin to observe our environment? According to the Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget, a child as young as two has already developed the capacity to reflect on their surroundings, realizing that their connection to the world is causal.^[5] If we link this to memory research, we can assume that a personal relationship with the environment, intensely experienced in childhood, is deeply imprinted in the consciousness and becomes the foundation for future empathy toward the natural world – just as it happened in my case, when I first touched the vast, moving, and murky water with the soles of my feet.

Grief for the environment begins precisely through the observation and study of natural elements. Of these, water is what resonates most closely with human nature. This cannot be explained simply by the fact that water is an inseparable part of both the human individual and their environment. “We are all parts of the same water”^[6] – in this statement, which is more than just metaphorical, a founding figure of hydrofeminism, Astrida Neimanis, implies that from the dawn of Earth to the present and into the future, water is the most circular, constant element. Through its circulation, it transforms into various forms and materializes within different bodies. All the water that has ever existed on this planet flows through every body, from the first humans to the modern era and beyond. Consequently, it is the most elusive, yet also the most constant and reliable agent. Water shifts from body to body, just as humans differ from one another, or as humans differ from other natural elements; yet, we all share that steady, enduring commonality in the form of the hydro-common, which makes us parts of one Earth and unites us even across past and future times.^[7]

According to Mark and Dianna McMenamin’s theory of Hypersea, life originated in the ocean, but as it migrated to land, biological bodies had to enfold the nature of water within themselves. Today, through daily actions, humans strengthen Hypersea. For instance, when drinking a glass of water, one comes into contact with all the companion species inhabiting that watershed – be they bacteria or aquatic plants. Hypersea unites not only flora and fauna but also technological and geophysical entities: filtration tanks and reservoirs alike. Everything is one infinite aqueous body, seemingly oxymoronic – within Hypersea exist both the Rioni and the Namakhvani HPP, both toxins and amphibians.

The salt accumulated in our blood and the wetness of our cells are reminders of the primordial ocean that continues to flow within us. According to Neimanis, our bodies are an infinite, materialized rehearsal of this ocean on land, turning every isolated entity into part of a unified water system. Consequently, we are alike, yet radically different; we gravitate toward one another, yet an entire ocean lies between us; we are covered by the ocean, and we ourselves carry its particles. My connection to my seven-year-old self is an infinite reflection in time, yet saturated with the very same water. It is as solid as H2O and as elusive as a watery body.^[8] Ultimately, it can be said that water is the most changeable and flexible, the most elusive, yet the most resilient presence within both the human and the environment – whether viewed separately or as a single, unified reality.

For Neimanis, water is both a temporal bridge and a memory-bearing archive. By drinking water, one absorbs the ghosts of all those bodies that once inhabited this home. Water can never be a tabula rasa.^[9] It constantly carries with it the material and semantic residues of past eras. Beyond H2O, water returns to nature as sweat, urine, and tears. It is not a sacred, “pure water” entity; industrial waste and toxins have permeated everything, even water itself. Even raindrops now contain PCBs.^[10] Chemical particles are everywhere – on glass, in lakes, within every human body – passed from generation to generation with their immense toxic memory.^[11] Our discarded antidepressants or chemical wastes are also part of the water’s archive, later flowing into other bodies. The past returns in the form of raindrops and floods. Water leads us from potential existence toward actual being.^[12] All its substances unite every form of life within a single drop.

What is it that we fear?

In October 2025, I traveled to Armenia. As part of a conference organized by the Cultural and Social Narratives Laboratory (CSN Lab), I spoke about the ecological anxiety felt by the inhabitants of the high-mountain villages of Racha concerning the Rioni River and the micro-hydroelectric power plants being constructed around it. In response, I heard a presentation about the Getar River. Today, the Getar is essentially a ghost of a river - a lingering memory of a river. Once a vital part of Armenian daily life, it was gradually exiled from the city’s landscape and vanished from public sight. Due to natural disasters and hydro-technical interventions, its riverbed was altered; through pollution, the river faded away, becoming a buried, subterranean memory.^[13] The constant reshaping of cities and shifting of ecosystems also trigger a sense of anxiety, as aggressive gentrification^[14] leads to the displacement of green and blue zones.

Perhaps this was what I feared in 2020, when I saw a plastic landfill beside the Rioni River? Is this how waters fade away? And what if humans are no longer part of the body of water? Perhaps the river water I drank in 2019 turned me into a nest for PCBs? Maybe the smoke I inhaled during the construction of the hydroelectric plants set off an even greater spiral of anxiety within me? The Getar’s memory, too, flows within this shared body of water. particles of this river are settled within every human, and don’t we, automatically and intuitively, carry its memory? How long will those drops of water that first appeared on Earth continue to live within us if, by 2075, the Rioni is truly gone?^[15]