Most of my childhood memories associated with water are terrifying. I remember when I was five, my family would take me to the nearby creek to enjoy the fresh water and chase butterflies. But ever since my mom sent my siblings and me to a swimming coach who lived in a treehouse beside a swimming pool fed by a mountain spring, all those beautiful moments sank into the deep sea, hardly ever surfacing in the next 15 years of my life.
At that time, we were all being trained as if we were in a concentration camp. He represented the supreme authority; everything he did was beyond any law. He was like a wild monster that could eat us alive if we didn’t obey his orders. His style of coaching combined brutality with ridiculous self-aggrandizement. He would often kick a football around the pool to intimidate us since he was an excellent football player. He would make us swim over and over again without a break or aggressively press our heads into the water to make us hold our breath as long as we could—or couldn’t. He didn’t care. He was the king of his jungle, and no one could have a say in anything except doing as he told us. Before I learned how to actually enjoy swimming, fear had already reached my doorstep.
As a result, my older sister and brother actually became excellent swimmers, and unfortunately, I was the one who got mocked in the family and left behind. I did learn how to swim, but I only swim because I didn’t want to suffer the consequences. I never enjoyed it or wanted to become a better swimmer. And during my school years, I was too afraid to attend the swimming class in school. I hated the noises at the swimming pool and hated myself dressed in a swimsuit because I was the bigger girl in class; I hated that I had to swim in a row and sometimes choked on water because I couldn’t keep up the pace. I started making excuses as much as possible to avoid the class. Year after year trying to run away from swimming, I soon forgot how to swim completely as I grew into adulthood.
This became carved into my identity for decades—I was terrified of the water, and I didn’t know how to swim. I stayed away from water to keep myself safe; burdened by my fear and stress and maybe some kind of grief, I poured them into the water, trying not to look back ever again. That’s why when I went to Australia, I wasn’t even interested in going to the coastline because every time I confronted the water, it reminded me how weak and cowardly I was. Instead, I ran away and found my ultimate exile—in the desert. It completely reshaped my inner landscape. I felt like I was reaching the end of the world.
But life didn’t stop there. After two years of traveling solo through the outback of Australia, I realized this solitude had reached its end. It wasn’t taking me anywhere anymore; I needed to find my way back into the living world. That’s when I decided to leave the small outback Queensland town of Hebel and drive all the way up to Far North Queensland—home to the oldest jungle on Earth, the Daintree Forest, the place where I learned how to confront that insecurity.
I went across the extreme heat and lifeless desert to the open woodland, and eventually arrived at the oldest jungle on Earth. I witnessed all these magnificent trees suddenly pop out of the ground and stretch all the way to the other end, where I couldn’t even see. Every living being from the Jurassic period seemed to magically walk out of historic time. The sorrow that I had buried deep down long ago started to rejuvenate by its power.
When I first arrived in the city of Cairns, I visited my friends whom I met in Tasmania one year earlier. They lived just a bit outside of the city. They took me to the nearest creek, named Stoney Creek. It was located in Barron Gorge National Park and was an easily accessible track.
We arrived there in my friend’s car. It was the first time I had explored the region, and I simply didn’t feel the need to bring anything with me. I left my wallet, phone, and keys in the car and walked in with just a pair of thongs and shorts. It felt weightless as we walked through the creek, sharing our journey over the past year and exploring the new possibility of living in this region.
The humidity made us all sticky and sweaty as we exchanged ideas, life struggles, questions, and beliefs. Just like the plants that entangled themselves, encroached, and extended in the jungle, we joined this beautiful, harmonious song that was singing in the creek. Our steps became the rhythm; we danced as we moved forward.
It was so magical to be part of this ancient ecosystem that it learnt to survive through centuries of Earth’s transformation. When we reached the top of the creek, water burst out from the higher ground and it somehow broke through that hard wall I built to secure myself away from the water, I felt the yearning to take off my clothes and immerse myself into that fresh water. I cheered and laughed like a kid. Rushing water washed away my doubts and fear, I forgot how simple and fun it could be to be in the water, I was filled with rapture, and I shared this very moment with my two gorgeous friends, I was seen.
The second time I visited Stoney Creek was with my two Taiwanese friends, whom I met at the hostel. Coming from the same country, we instantly found an anchor in each other, shared very similar feelings when we traveled around the rainforest, especially when we drove through the mountains listening to our nostalgic Taiwanese songs.
The connection between us was very special to me. We were all about the same age, coming from the same culture and trying to dip ourselves into the other side of the world. We all carried that naive curiosity, redirecting our life purposes in an unknown territory.
Not many people were at Stoney Creek when we ventured there on the weekday. The rainforest nurtured us like a mother, holding us as we all played and chatted like unruly kids. The distance from our homes created a space where we were allowed to temporarily put down our old identities, obligations, and judgments, especially those deep questions within life. We shared genuinely, traced ourselves back to our childhood, our families, and our relationships in life.
An intricate network within us grew upon the creek; every element started to find its role and fell into place. I learned that a shared journey can create far beyond oneself. There was some kind of truthfulness and naivety we shared that I cherished till this day, and every time we reunited, it stayed the same.
I never thought life could take me on a massive detour and eventually arrive at exactly the same place, and it made time just an illusion. I felt extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to revisit my childhood again and nurture it, learning to take good care of it and to see it grow and eventually play with all the other elements in the world I lived in. That’s something I would never have imagined while walking alone in the desert.
I used to cheer and play in my own imagination, making assumptions within my own territory. But when we all started to dance with the rhythm of the earth, a force of creation burst forth. When we allowed ourselves to surrender, to be part of, to share, to listen, that’s where the magic began.
It’s so good to feel like a kid again, and just be playful and naive about all the things that happen in life. And this memory fragment will forever remain like this for me: weightless, converse and dance with the rhythm.
8:27pm 25th Sep 2026 Taipei, Taiwan
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