Last night when I settled down I started thinking about a time long ago. I was laying on the shores of a mountain lake in Idaho. The water lay like a pool of mercury casting out reflections from a lushly round moon. It was very quiet. As I lay there in peace and harmony I noticed that a light fog was forming over the lake. The moonlight gave it an eerie incandescent glow.

Occasionally a wandering gust of wind would ruffle the glassy surface of the lake. As I lay there in my own world I noticed small wisps of fog rising from the main fog layer. Some rose for a few seconds and then fell back. Others would rise up and dance just above the rest as if directed by someone or something that I was not in tune with. Most of these would go back from where they came but some would dance for a while until they were joined by other wisps. It seemed I was watching the dance of life played out before me by the wisps.

Most would dance around each other playfully but never connect, they each flew their separate ways; some back into the main fog others into shadows never to be seen again. Others had a brief encounter and then would separate.

After watching several of these I started to understand that when they came together parts of them become one and when they separated each took parts of the other. I felt sad for these that had such a brief encounter until I realized that they had much more than those wisps that never came together at all before they died. As I continued to watch there were some that came together and became one for a long time. The moonlight surrounded them with a special glow of warmth. Most of these danced for a long time above the main fog like kids showing off for their friends. Others went much higher and swayed together with every caress off the unseen breeze. Some were torn apart by the breeze and disappeared never to be seen again.

As night turned into morning, shafts of sunlight came to dance with the few wisps that had stayed together all night dancing high above the rest. Each of them, one by one, melted into the air around them still entwined. As the morning grew warmer the light fog rose above the lake as if trying to escape the bonds of nature for the last time, it too disappeared into the morning.

We are all like these small wisps trying to escape nature’s bonds and not understanding that we are by nature forced to life within those boundaries. Those wisps that came together for just a few fleeting seconds had, in truth, found so much more in their short life than those that didn’t make any connection. I am sure they felt pain in their own way when pulled apart but still they gained so much more than the solo dancers who knew no rhythm but their own.

Those that came together for a short time and danced, only to be pulled apart by nature, left with good and bad parts of the other but they too experienced the fulfilling of joined selves.

The last wisps, that were able to stay together and dance the dance of life up to the very last second, until nature once again claimed her property, were the most fulfilled. They returned from whence they came still linked as one.

-Ed Elam