Looking out the window at the Oregon landscape 35,000 feet below, and beyond the Pacific coastal clouds, I pondered the existence of water in its many forms that was visible in this one panoramic view.  I was suddenly overcome by the feeling of what it might be like to be a molecule of water!

In a reverie, I snatched a water vapor molecule from the air, and asked it to tell it's story.  It was exuberant about it's recent path to freedom.  It told me of it's escape from the sea only a few months ago.  Of its Odyssean wanderings since the sun released it.  It rose, and joined a cloud, and was driven landward, and fell as rain to the ground -  which it had not seen since long ago.  Then, after evaporating to the air, it found its way into another cloud, and rained to the ground once more.  It flowed to a creek, and joined a river, but evaporated once more.  And now it had been captured and asked to tell its story.

The molecule knows where it came from, and where it is destined to go.  That is why it is so exuberant!  It knows of the long, long wait for liberation from the dark abyss.  It knows of eternity, waiting millions of years for its "time in the sun."

And the molecule also knows the fate which soon awaits.  When it flows to the sea, it will be another seeming infinity before it will again see the sun.  The ocean is so vast!  It's immensity will reclaim the molecule for another eternity.

And this is how I feel!  I am in the air now, with warm sunlight upon my shoulder, but soon I will be flowing to the the darkness of the sea.

To the sea, to the sea....

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This site opened:  October 30, 1998.  Last Update:  April 14, 2001