I’m reading a book by Bill Bryson called The Body: A Guide for Occupants. The book takes the reader on a grand tour of the entire human body. It starts with the head and then methodically moves down the body. It struck me how resilient we are given all the crap we shove into our bodies, all while expecting it to keep operating, and processing what we eat, see, smell, taste, and hear. What a brilliant machine.

The other morning I swam through what I can only describe as a waterborne dust cloud. A couple of days ago, we were hit by a massive dust storm. The next day I could see the clay-like dust on the roads and caked onto the cars. This dust must have also floated down and settled into the ocean, and I was now swimming through a lake of it. It was unsettling and murky. In my head, I thought that these were the kind of conditions where a shark gets confused and takes a bite! The next day the water dust bowl was gone, and it was back to blue.

Just like our bodies, we expect the ocean to process and filter all the junk that flows into it every day. How lucky are we? I hope we acknowledge it and treat our bodies and ocean with respect and care. We only have one.

Photo by Ethan Dow on Unsplash