In Florida, I got lost for hours near the river where the manatees lived, watching them float to the surface, breathe, then dive down. "They have to be aliens," I thought, "with their gray fat pencil eraser bodies, their whiskers and their snouts." I loved the look of them.
(more) I loved the size of them, ten feet long and roughly a thousand pounds. I loved how slow they traveled, how much they rested. I wanted to join them. I wanted to be in their peace, because, surely, there were temples down there we couldn't see, surely they had their own religion, divine rites, something. The day I spent with the manatees gentled me. Even now, in hours when I am discontent, I think of them, whole families of them, beneath the surface of the water. If we were like the manatees, the earth would be saved. (less)
