With Water As My Witness:
Part Two

Here Are The Facts

I found a pendant of Mary, Joseph and Jesus discarded in a dumpster of a neighbouring village.

Barefooted, wearing the faded pink dress and donning the pendant I left the house at dawn on an empty stomach.

Pink is my least favourite colour.

I took with me the small jar full of water from the local church fountain dedicated to Mary, Our Lady of Miracles, built where she appeared to a local, guiding him to the source of a hidden spring to relieve draught and death.

Unrestrained menstrual bleeding during my first attempt to meet the sea had left red and brown marks in the fabric of my dress.

From the fountain I walked West to the sea for 13 hours and 33 kilometres.

Having memorised the route I got lost once.

But a woman named Beatriz gave me a beetroot and pointed the way.

I arrived at the ocean at sunset, the sky bloodied by the sun.

Pouring the water from the fountain into the sea I returned water to water.

I read it a collection of my thoughts written down along the way in a notebook marbled with the marks of the fountain water.

It was our collective love letter.

And then I tore up its pages.

I took off my dress and bathed in the ocean.

In a big jar I collected the water of the ocean and placed the dress inside.

I hung the pendant around the jar and constructed for it an altar in front of the house.

In the mornings I would open the jar to let the ocean return to the air, and at night I would close it.

I would kneel in front of the jar and chant for the holy river Ganga.

A couple of days later an olive tree appeared beside it.

The same day I discover the return of my menstrual bleeding, seven days early and only for a day.

That night the moon was full and I knelt in front of the jar to chant until I cried.

I help the water evaporate by laying it out like an offering on a tray in front of the altar.

That day men show up with a big hose and water the tree.

A hole in the hose sprays its own fountain of blessings over the altar and water runs around and underneath it.

The ocean I had collected disappears into the arms of the sky.

I gather the salt it leaves behind, keeping the ashes of its body.

Then I burn the dress and am left with ashes upon ashes.

I can’t believe in coincidences.

Performance 18/03/2021-31/03/2021, Torres Vedras, Portugal