You have to be still to see the fish.

You have to be still to see the fish. The water is clear, clear to the point that from my perch I cannot judge the change in depth. The algae covered rocks and fallen leaves that become a play place for the sun, making light dance, are a perfect and lovely camouflage. But they are these--small and perfect in the stream, gracefully navigating their quiet world, while I, basking in the sun's warmth on my rock, am still.

I wrote this yesterday, on a rock, overlooking a stream, after what has become my weekly hike. I definitely feel saner and more able to take on the world of teenagers competing for my attention and the petty insecurities of fellow teachers and the anticipation of a Democratic Congress (though there are still a couple of weeks for us to mess that up) and the unceasing bloodshed in Iraq, and now today, on the front page of the New York Times, the almost unimaginable--Darfur getting worse.

But all I need to do is summon into my mind the picture of the fish, the calm stillness of myself. The sudden realization that hundreds of little beings were there, perhaps staring back at me, only moments before unnoticed--part of a landscape. As unimportant to the passerby as each of us may be to those "in charge" speeding by in their re-election bids. Perhaps that is why so many of them will lose this time around. They have not been still. Caught up in their politics and maneuvering, they have not seen us here, camouflaged by the "normalcy" of our lives, but important, if unnoticed, pieces of their landscape. Be still.