I want to be like water.
Freely moving, bouncing off its obstacles.
Taking shape of the space that it’s in.
But be damned if something stops it.
Yet I am only a man who is made up of sixty percent of it,
And lets it do what it does through me.
This poem came to me while I sat alone on a rock in the middle of the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta, Georgia. I had gone there to write. Life had become loud and I needed somewhere my thoughts couldn’t outrun me. The river slowed me down long enough to hear God.
It’s strange the place that now brings me peace was once the place I feared most.
I don’t think I was only afraid of water. I was afraid of letting go.
One summer afternoon at Pocahontas State Park in Chester, Virginia, while my friends cannonballed into the deep end, I sat on the ladder, dipping my toes into the water. But that day, I quietly decided I was done living on the edge.
I started taking swimming lessons and eventually found my confidence in the very place that once frightened me. The greatest lesson wasn’t learning how to swim. It was learning how to trust.
Years later, at twenty-two, a recent graduate of Morehouse College, I was living alone and quietly battling depression. I slept in my car, on couches and worked three jobs just to make ends meet. I wanted to succeed by any means necessary, but ended up burning myself out.
Comparison with my peers stole my joy. I lacked patience. The limits of my borrowed belief were exposed.
However, Jeremiah 29:11 and Matthew 17:20 became anchor verses for me. They were reminders that God orders my steps and only asks for faithful obedience. Eventually, my faith became my own.
For generations, Black families have carried complicated relationships with water, shaped by exclusion, trauma and limited access. I can’t rewrite that history, but I can help write a different future.
Also during this time, I kept returning to an idea that remained untouched in the Notes app on my phone. Build a community swim clinic.
I told myself I was waiting for the right time. The truth was, I was waiting for fear to disappear. It never did. Instead, God reminded me courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s obedience in spite of it.
That obedience became Drip No Drown Swimming.
What began as an idea became a calling. I wasn’t simply teaching people how to swim. I was helping them reclaim their relationship with water.
One afternoon, during one of my sessions, a young child arrived clinging tightly to his mother’s leg. His face buried into her knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. He bit his fingers nervously, his body stiffening every time I invited him toward the pool.
I had a revelation. I wasn’t just looking at a frightened child—I was looking at six-year-old me.
We didn’t rush. We played. We laughed. We let curiosity do what pressure never could.
By the end of the lesson, the child was smiling from the water, proudly waving to his mom and showing off the pool toys. Just a few moments ago, he was frozen by fear.
When it was time to leave, he cried again. But this time, it was because he didn’t want to get out.
Parents often tell me, “Nobody in my family knows how to swim.”
“I was thrown in and had to figure it out.“
“I want my child to learn, but I’m still scared.”
These aren’t simply conversations about swimming—they’re about inheritance. For generations, Black families have carried complicated relationships with water, shaped by exclusion, trauma and limited access. I can’t rewrite that history, but I can help write a different future. One lesson, one family at a time.
There are days I arrive at the pool carrying burdens no one else can see. Then I step into the water and something shifts.
My worries become smaller than my assignment. I’m reminded I am simply a vessel and that God has a way of using the very experiences I once wished away to help someone else begin again.
I still think about that afternoon on the Chattahoochee. Back then, I thought I was writing about water. But now I know I was writing about having the faith and courage to step into waters not knowing where the current would carry me.
I want to be like water—resilient, adaptable and persistent. I want to be free.
Note: This journey is the story behind “Preparations,” a documentary about my life and becoming a leader in aquatics, while exploring swimming as a critical, Black health, quality-of-life and climate matter. Help us bring this story to life.
BABL 