Message for All – A Drop of Distance
Jesse Greist
September 13, 2020
Not too far from here, a single drop of water sat on a leaf in a forest after a rainstorm, reflecting on its time on Earth. It had existed for millions of years, and in those years had seen it all. Times of stillness, times of chaos. Times of ebb and times of flow. There had been floods, droughts, and everything in between. The water drop had flowed in rivers and oceans, had evaporated up into clouds, had remained in perfectly still meditation for thousands of years in ice glaciers, had quenched the thirst of countless living things, and sat underground in deep limestone pools, eventually drawn up and into the outside world again, where the cycle repeated itself without end. It had been everywhere and after all this time, was feeling tired and a bit worried about the future.
While the drop itself remained unchanged, great changes were happening in the world around. The drop found itself carrying more dirt, chemicals and pollution up to the sky and back down into waterways than before. It found itself spending less time in rolling rivers and deep ocean currents and more time trapped in plastic bottles on shelves, mixed with sugar and artificial colors. There were more storms swirling it around violently, and fewer gentle mists depositing the drop on epiphytes, and even the time in the underground pools and tall glaciers was shorter, barely enough to settle into stillness. Everything, it seemed was getting faster and louder, as the water drop had found itself appearing more and more in tik tok videos and viral challenges.
Many in the vastly connected world of water were beginning to feel that it was no longer safe to flow freely wherever gravity took it. Articles in leading newspapers like the Current, and the Tributary began warning drops everywhere to begin distancing themselves from factories and farms, from people and faucets, because you just didn’t know what might befall water these days. For the last few months, when drops had fallen from the sky, they had been more hesitant to flow together into streams. You could feel the surface tension between them and see them struggling against the instincts that they had lived by since time began. It felt wrong, it felt isolating, but it was for the best, they all knew.
So this one drop on that one leaf did something that no drop had tried before. When it evaporated in sunlight and rose skyward that afternoon, it didn’t stop at the cloud. It kept going, rising through thin air, turning to ice, escaping gravity like no other drop in history, and this little drop flew all the way out into space.
“There” the drop said to itself. “How’s that for social distancing!” It was a cold, open universe out there, full of unexplored expanse, where no drop had gone before. For awhile the drop was happier than ever. It meditated, it basked in quiet. It waved at passing asteroids and caught a comet by the tail. This was an exciting ride! It was faster than any waterfall or rainstorm. The comet seemed to know where it was going so the drop held on, riding it so close to the sun it almost lost itself, but at the last minute, it turned around and began to fly away again.
The time away from Earth was good, was healing and was very, very lonely. The drop had never felt safer from harm, but was starting to feel the emptiness of space around it. It began to miss the vast aqua-community back home. The drop recalled what it had felt like to flow with countless others in the ancient rhythm of rocky streams. It remembered free falling down waterfalls. It smiled with the memory of being pushed through the gills of a prehistoric shark, delivering a shimmering gift of oxygen to her as it passed through. Perhaps it was time to reconnect. Perhaps the life of a distant wanderer was not what the drop needed after all.
So as the comet passed Venus and headed back into Earth’s celestial neighborhood, the drop let go, aiming itself at the atmosphere, and once again through some unexplained magic fell down, down, down until it found itself on a leaf in a forest, not too far from here. The drop was glad to be back on the leaf. It knew that it was too soon to jump back into the river, but knew also that there were plenty of ways to connect safely with the world around.
We are water. We are drops that have flowed, flooded, evaporated and fallen to Earth in gentle drizzle. We have sat still in the heart of glaciers, dreaming of change. This feels like a time when we are fighting against gravity, pulled towards community and the sharing of space, even as we know that we must keep each other safe through distance. Yet we do not need to bottle ourselves up! We do not need to block rivers from flowing! We are water so we can take the shape of the world we live in. There is room on our leaves and in our forests for many drops to sit at a distance, sparkle and admire each other’s shine! We can seek ways to connect like clouds do – one shape made of many drops, with room to pass between and among. We can be together today, in this sacred space nourished by the water that has roamed every corner of this planet and sustained our myriad ancestors, sharing itself with all, even as it beads apart on the surface of a single leaf in a forest far away and so close to home.