The Water in Your Body

Think on this: All the water in your body has been around – in one form or another – for 4.54 billion years. It’s just visiting you. Last week, or last month, it was a thunderstorm. In the winter it was a snowstorm. And soon enough it’ll be the ocean. There are 7 octillion atoms in your body, and each one of them are billions of years old. And half the water molecules in the atoms in your body came from across the universe. You are in the tropical rainforests, the underwater reefs, the wind, the moon, the butterflies, and the hills and heathers of your heart. You were once part of a glacier, formed over hundreds of years, completely reshaping the rock beneath you. Tiny droplets of you once suspended in the air near the ground, reducing visibility into fog. And several times you helped make up a rainy June afternoon. Most of the water in your cells comes and goes like morning dewdrops.

In fact, there are more weather patterns in your body than anywhere else. Sun-dappled vapour. The quiet intensity and suppressed volatility of summer lightning. A storm's sharp kiss.

Wherever you go, there you are, waiting for yourself.