Swimming upstream with the salmon

Su and I went to Seattle last week for summer vacation... where we got to see salmon swimming upstream. How appropriate was that. And I learned one of the coolest words ever... "smoltification"... the process in which a salmon that is born in freshwater learns to live in saltwater. How improbable is that. The improbability of it all is demonstrated in the bleak statistics... some huge number of eggs lain, a much smaller number that escape being eaten and develop into fry (hence: "small fry"), a much smaller number of those that develop into smolts... and make the treacherous journey up the fish ladder across the dam and into the ocean, a much smaller number that escape the jaws of seagulls and sealions, a much smaller number that live happily in the ocean until they sense it is time to return to freshwater to spawn (and die.) Apart from that last sad reminder of mortality, it got me thinking about all of us and our stories. We have survived (got Gloria Gaynor running through your head yet?) The end is in sight. We can do this. I can do this.