Like Dragonflies Crossing the Ocean
Maldives dragonflies cross the Indian Ocean every year. They fly at 3,000-foot altitudes. They spend 3,500 km of that over the open ocean.
Dragonflies are less than four inches long.
The dragonflies can take four generations to make their migration, breeding in temporary pools of rain. Those pools might be there and might not when the dragonflies arrive.
I suppose they don't really know before they start, whether their children will make the crossing. Whether the rain will fall in time.
Ever since I started running half-marathons, I understand so much better how far a kilometer or mile really is. Road signs take on new meaning when I can imagine myself running the four miles to the next turn-off: how long it would take, how I would feel at the end.
Yesterday I ran a little more than four miles without realizing it. The Runkeeper app made it look like I would just be tempo running for 25 minutes, period. I thought about giving up when I realized my mistake - that the app wanted a warm-up and cool-down mile on either end. I wasn't in the mood to run very far. I kept going because I really wasn't concentrating on the how far part of it. I was trying to go fast.
When I got done, I thought about seeing the sign posted four miles before my usual interstate turn-off, how very far four miles always seemed when I just wanted to get home.
It's better not to know, not to see the whole distance before you start.
It's better not to wonder about the rain.
It's better, I suppose, to just cross the ocean.