Streams to the Sea

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I love standing where rivers meet the sea.  Here, I imagine the crescendo of a timeless cycle.  An entire ocean fractures into a single drop at the crest of a wave-- crashes, evaporates into mist, morphs into a raindrop, falls onto mountaintops, trickles downhill to become a river, plunges towards the plains, winds through meadows, forests and valleys, and finally, after a lifetime of wandering, pours itself back into the sea. Such a quiet crescendo, for such a miraculous journey.

The end of the trail looks a lot like the end, in general, for the old river. The glory days of bounding over boulders and cascading over falls are behind it.  The long, peaceful stretches, that seemed would go on forever, did not.   And yet, what looks like the end, is just a new beginning, a merging of the finite into the infinite, like melting into the very best welcome home hug, after arriving home safely at last. Maybe it's only wishful thinking, but standing where Coon Creek ripples into the Pacific, I can't help but ponder: maybe we too are only journeying towards home.  Maybe, we are destined to merge and fracture and merge-- whole, to part to whole-- over and over, catching new waves on different shores, rising up again and again in a shimmer of mist.   Who knows?   In the mean time,  happy surfing and streaming!