Solid to Liquid, then the Liquid Vapors Away

Ice gets less cold and less cold but is still ice. The changes are literally just a matter of degree. Than a degree or two more—and it is no longer ice. It’s water. That is called phase change.

You keep growing and changing throughout life, but sometimes you go through a phase change. A discontinuity. You look around at all the same things as before and recognize nothing.

Svalbard, Arctic Ocean.

The first time you go to school.

When you move out of the house.

When you marry.

Your first child.

And then as a parent you go through equal phase changes yourself when your children do these things, especially the first child.

Your child marries. Obviously the two have been dating and twitterpated for awhile, they’ve been making plans and accumulating items for their new married life, only a little bit has changed, but everything has changed.

You have crossed the Continental Divide. The slope has barely changed, only now the course of your life runs down strange courses into a different ocean. Behind you the landscape is already a bit obscured.