I Can Be a Drop
By Sara Delaney
“Water drops on Pemadumcook Lake in the morning, August 2023.”
I Can Be a Drop
The rain came down heavy during the night, a comforting sound on the roof.
We were sleeping at a friend’s “camp” – up in the north of Maine, Millinocket.
It was quiet there, peaceful. The little houses were right on the lakeshore.
Large long lakes that connected, diverged, plenty of space for swimmers, canoers, fishers, people sitting and looking and chatting.
I was one of the first to wake the next morning, and I snuck outside.
Down the stairs, down the path, to the lake.
I don’t often get to sleep that close to a lake, and it felt like a treat.
The rain had stopped, and the sun was rising. Everything wet and sparkling.
The water surface was calm, smooth.
Except for where water was dropping from tree leaves along the shore.
Drop, drop, drop.
I stood and watched those drops. Almost as mesmerizing as ocean wavers or fire flames.
A drop would hit the water, and then spread out, making a bigger and bigger circle.
And another, next to it, overlapping.
The image took my mind to a piece I had worked on with others during the winter, published in last year’s edition of Spire.
We made a graphic for it, an attempt to show how individuals or groups can work together, how small actions can become part of bigger actions.
That graphic had the same concentric circles that I was seeing, studying, on the water.
Can small efforts really make a difference? I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of some of our large global human-induced challenges: our emissions and the changing climate, our land use and biodiversity loss, conflicts and refugees and forced migration. Looking at these circles, spreading out, makes me think… maybe?
In that article, we talked about “peer-to-peer social affinity”, or “interactions based on mutual interest between equal-level actors; individual to individual, group to group, state to state, and nation to nation.” These circles, on this lake, were overlapping, interacting, building something bigger.
The drops had no objective. No agenda. They each disappeared as they grew.
I had to turn away. Go back into the camp.
Into the chaos of a morning filled with excited kids and pancakes and plans for swimming.
But the drops and the circles stayed with me.
I can be a drop. I am one. My actions can make a circle.
And I am surrounded by others, overlapping, interacting, and maybe…
creating something that won’t disappear.