Microcosm

I fell in love with my house, the best place I've ever lived, because of the pond out front. It's a dug out sinkhole, probably 20 feet wide by about 80 feet long, with a stone bridge built over the middle.

My pond is my favorite place. A few years ago, Wifey and Ds 1 and 2 bought me an aluminum bench and a sign identyfying the pond as mine. They chuckle when I sit there, most days, gazing at the koi, and cichlids, and other species of fish and terrapins that happily ply the waters.

Every few years, there's a big fish die off. The first was about 2 years after we moved in --the koi that came with the house, many of which were close to 2 feet long, and about 10 years old, gasped for air on the banks of the pond and died.

I replaced them, and after the prolonged powere shortage of Hurricane Wilma, where the aerating pump I have was off for 2 weeks, there was another die off --leaving only the smallest fish.

2 weeks ago, we had some pretty serious wildfires in the Everglades, and a LOT of ash fell in our neighborhood. Coupled with that, the ficus trees dropped much of their biannual berry blossoms, and the pond water turned an unattractive rust color. Then came another die off, of 12 large koi, and all of the larger cichlids and tetras.

The pond stank of dead fish for a week, but the raccoons and buzzards did their scavenging, and all of the corpses disappeared.

This morning I went to the pond, and the water was clear, and the remaining fish swam rapidly. One who had never seen the pond would conclude that all was well and healthy, because it was. Nature had replenished herself --the world started fresh and new.

My sister told me about a PBS science show depicting the look of New York City if all of the humans left. Within a remarkeably short time, plants and trees would take over, and in the relative blink of an eye, the city would be forest again.

This all tells us what we should already realize --the writer of Ecclesiastes nailed it --all is vanity. We stress and we struggle and we worry and we ruminate --and then we're gone as if we never existed. We're like my pond fish, in the scheme of things.

The single worst event of my life was the day my father died. I was 4 days from 21, and friends all tried to console me with kind words. One of my professors, a colorful Religious Studies man and Department head, hugged me and said simply "We all do it."

His simple sentence resonated --we all DO die, as foreign a notion that seemed to a 21 year old college senior.

That same year, I read Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," and the scientist Bazarov (I STILL remember the character's name) explained why he dissected frogs --by learning how the frog works, he can learn how the larger human works.

The same principle is apt for me with my little pond world --my microcosm. Everything dies, and yet life goes on.

I love to sit and watch it.