For me, water is essential.
I don't do well in an environment without it, as I learned in Arizona. As much as I love Phoenix, I could barely survive there six months before I started having flashbacks of water on buses. I need oceans and rivers, lakes and streams and rain and those deep green forests that you only find in rainy places. I need shade and maple trees.
I was born on an island. My grandmother told me that since I was born so close to the sea I would always need to be close to it, just like her and my mother and my aunts. I was sailing up and down the east coast before I could walk. Even in Central New York, although I miss the ocean terribly, there's enough water here for me to do well. Lakes in whichever direction you decide to take, plus the woods I love so much.
Which is why I find it strange that for someone who needs water so badly to function, I am highly allergic to it.
This was going somewhere at some point, but it doesn't matter now.