Nature Flow

One rainy morning as my coffee is brewing, two drops of water slide down the kitchen window and suddenly combine to create one larger drop. My mind is flooded with questions… Are they still two drops? Can they return to their individual forms? What shape do they take in the space they occupy? Does one dominate the other? Or is each leading and following its destiny in equal parts? I watch them dance down the glass as one, as though the future were irrelevant, neither knowing nor caring if at some point they will separate, or become part of something greater—a river, a lake, the sea… or if they will evaporate and lose their connection to one another. But for now, in the present, they simply go with it, enjoying the flow as they skate across the glass. They swiftly collide with the sill—a frame that brings the dance to a halt. For a moment, it looks like this structure is where the road ends, that the surface tension will force them apart, and I know that if need be, both will let go, condemning themselves instead to die on the window frame, evaporated by the sun (and I wonder: when will we human beings learn to let go?). Ultimately, they continue on their path down the window, unconcerned by what will happen next. They are focused in the now, dancing to the music of the wind, adjusting their shape to suit the circumstances of the moment, both leaders and followers simultaneously. Such presence… They know the only thing that matters is now, that the only way to get where they’re going is with the knowledge that they are two individual drops – each complete in and of itself – having decided to share this part of their path. And at that moment I think: we’re not so different from drops of water. I just hope it doesn’t take too long for us to notice that the key to what we’re searching for is right before our eyes, in nature, in the flight of the birds, in the flowers swaying to the beat of the wind, and in two drops of water sliding down the window.