II.

“When it became generally known a year or so ago that California was suffering severe drought, many people in water-rich parts of the country seemed obscurely gratified, and made frequent reference to Californians having to brick up their swimming pools. In fact a swimming pool requires, once it has been filled, and the filter has begun the process of cleaning and recirculating the water, virtually no water, but the symbolic content of swimming pools has always been interesting; a pool is misapprehended as a trapping of affluence, real or pretended, and of a kind of hedonistic attention to the body. Actually a pool is, for many of us in the West, a symbol, not of affluence but of order, of control over the uncontrollable. A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, infinitely soothing to the western eye.”

--Holy Water, Joan Didion