Photo and Blog a Day Challenge-Day 13/28: Water

"Be water, my friend." -Bruce Lee

I've had quite a relationship with water in my three decades on this Earth (which is covered mostly water, by the way).

1. Lived on both coasts.
2. Joined the Navy.
3. Stationed on and deployed with a submarine (Hooyah, Rickover!)
4. I love the beach (fitting with #1).
5. I love pool parties.
6. I drink a lot of water.
7. I really enjoy taking a shower.
8. I passed my swim qual in Navy boot camp.
9. I successfully completed a month-long swimming unit in high school.
10. I can't swim.
11. One of my biggest fears is drowning.

Ok, so maybe #10 and #11 aren't exactly in support of my overall positive relationship with dihydrogen monoxide, but hey, you take the good with the bad, right? You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, so they say.

But yes, water and I get along more times than not. A lot of people do. Brad Paisley even wrote a song about it. And not in a metaphorical, subliminal way, either. Here's the video for the song entitled, "Water," shocker, right?

If you've been following my blogging journey, you've noticed there have been a few posts about snow.
Snow.
More snow.
Snowflakes.

I wanted to flip it up today, so I give you...ice.

Driving around seeing all the icicles on houses has been so intriguing, awe inspiring, and scary. A few days ago, a co-worker had told me that the icicles on the back of the building had been growing, so during my lunch today, I drove around to check em out for myself

Whoa, right? Here are a few more.

And although the logical part of my brain can piece together exactly how this happens, I couldn't help but stare at them and be amazed.

Water. Like Bruce Lee said, it can take the form of any vessel that it fills. But what if there is no vessel? Then it flows as freely as it can...until it freezes. And then it flows again when it thaws...until it freezes it again. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Applying that to ourselves, we can flow into the vessels that we fill. Households, schools, jobs, religions, communities, and so on. But when there is no vessel, where do we go? When do we freeze? When do we stay liquid? Do we become dirty by picking up filth from our environment? Or even when it is added to us?

We can filter things out, thaw, freeze, flow, and spread. We can lose droplets in cracks and grow in collaboration with others.

These icicles back here are like people. These moderately scary, but wholly awesome ice sculptures persuaded by the construction of these buildings are like each of us. We flow, we grow, we freeze, we flow, we spread, we mix, we nourish, evaporate, and flow once again.

It's as simple as Master Bruce said, "Be water, my friend."