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We Are All Watching the Same Shoreline · Relatively Stable

0:11
We are all watching the same shoreline on drought,
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water bankruptcy,
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and the pond at our farm.
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SPEAKER_00: Days before the rain was scheduled to start,
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clients began messaging me to ask what would happen if it
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rained during their
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SPEAKER_00: weekend sessions.
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In the upstate of South Carolina and beyond,
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we are living in a historic drought.
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SPEAKER_00: Most people have no idea what's happening,
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SPEAKER_00: and these people are smart,
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SPEAKER_00: savvy,
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SPEAKER_00: compassionate,
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SPEAKER_00: and aware,
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SPEAKER_00: but they live indoors and buy their food from a store.
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SPEAKER_00: Their water comes from a tap,
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SPEAKER_00: And while they notice their lawn is browning,
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SPEAKER_00: they assume it's just the South working its weird warm weather dance.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm no better than them, but I work outside every day.
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SPEAKER_00: Green and growing grass is money credited back into our hay budget.
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SPEAKER_00: Lawn seed equals food.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll save my whining about golf courses for another day,
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SPEAKER_00: but I'm here this week to talk to you about what the land is saying.
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SPEAKER_00: because the way our lives are designed makes it easy to miss.
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SPEAKER_00: We have a magical pond at Lavender Hill.
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It's two acres of underground spring water stocked and tended
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by a previous owner
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SPEAKER_00: about 30 years ago.
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So it's a relatively recent addition to this land's two
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centuries of farming.
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SPEAKER_00: I've studied the USDA surveys from the pond's construction
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SPEAKER_00: And even though my world revolves around checking water troughs,
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it took the maps to drive home to me that all these picturesque
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bodies of water you
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see dotted around fields are backup water to supply livestock
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in years of drought.
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I found this handwritten note on the original planning draft
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for the pond.
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SPEAKER_00: It says,
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This pond will supply livestock needs in years that do not
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reflect the severity of
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SPEAKER_00: a 50 year drought,
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SPEAKER_00: but it will theoretically go dry during a 50 year drought.
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SPEAKER_00: Across the street,
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our neighbors have a large pond that I've stared at all winter
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as I sit at the
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SPEAKER_00: table and write.
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SPEAKER_00: The spring foliage is beginning to block the view
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But throughout the cold months,
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my mother and I worried over the dropping shoreline.
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SPEAKER_00: Does it seem down today?
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SPEAKER_00: She would ask as we judged the visibility of a downed tree at the edge.
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SPEAKER_00: The tree became our water gauge.
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SPEAKER_00: We came up with wild stories,
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SPEAKER_00: fearing that they were draining the pond on purpose,
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as if they planned to sell the land and the water was a
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liability for developers.
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SPEAKER_00: Finally, we just asked them,
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SPEAKER_00: The waterline was steadily shrinking because of the drought.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming their pond is fed by a creek or another surface waterway.
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The only thing keeping our pond filled is the underground
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spring that feeds it,
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SPEAKER_00: but recently I've seen the shoreline dropping.
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The neighbors were deeply worried about how low their pond had
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shrunk over the winter.
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SPEAKER_00: A 50-year drought is one thing,
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but what we're experiencing in the upstate of South Carolina is
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something else
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SPEAKER_00: entirely.
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SPEAKER_00: This region is a temperate rain forest,
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SPEAKER_00: and spring is historically our wet season,
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drenching our mountain water reservoirs and soaking the ground
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so spring planting
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SPEAKER_00: will take root.
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SPEAKER_00: In my not too distant memory, the area where I live and work was rural.
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SPEAKER_00: Old farmers lived and worked by the seasons,
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SPEAKER_00: the rainfall,
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SPEAKER_00: and variations in the elements from year to year.
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SPEAKER_00: Now we plant subdivisions in every old field,
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and for most people drought only affects how green and lush
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their yards are.
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SPEAKER_00: Few understand the severity of the drought we're in.
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SPEAKER_00: The scale, a record-breaking drought.
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The United States Drought Monitor was unveiled at a White House
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press conference in
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SPEAKER_00: 1999,
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a joint effort between the National Drought Mitigation Center
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at the University of
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SPEAKER_00: Nebraska-Lincoln,
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SPEAKER_00: NOAA,
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and the USDA this type of venture had never been accomplished
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before taking the
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scattered varied science of dryness and rendering it into a
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single unified weekly
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map that could move policy trigger federal response and create
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a visual aid to
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simplify the numbers showing what the land was or wasn't
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receiving from the sky
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SPEAKER_00: before 1999
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SPEAKER_00: Localized monitoring existed in a piecemeal form,
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but this effort was a standardized national collection that
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blended hard data with
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SPEAKER_00: boots on the ground observation.
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It was designed to bridge the gap between what instruments
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measured and what
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SPEAKER_00: farmers already knew in their bones.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a standard tool now and it's used to trigger a response in crises,
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a database that pushes the government to acknowledge when
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there's not enough water.
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Most people have never heard of this initiative Most people
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don't need to know what
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these groups do until they do I didn't know the map existed
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until I sat down to
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write this piece I digested these dates and numbers and I
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thought how curious that
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our pond at Lavender Hill was born the year the United States
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Drought Monitor was
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SPEAKER_00: developed The turn of the millennium was when I bought Max,
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SPEAKER_00: my little red-headed quarter horse
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and launched myself from a desk and into the world of building
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a horse farm.
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SPEAKER_00: There was a drought the summer I quit my real jobs to clean stalls.
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I remember thinking my body couldn't take the heat and later
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being amazed that I had adapted.
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SPEAKER_00: Currently,
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SPEAKER_00: the U.S.
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Drought Monitor shows the worst ever recorded drought for the
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southeastern states.
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SPEAKER_00: It is the largest area of severe drought since the map began.
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It's the only comparison available because in 25 years of
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weekly measurement,
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SPEAKER_00: the map has never looked like this.
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Back even further past the maps and into the raw historical
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record,
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it gets even worse.
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SPEAKER_00: Georgia,
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SPEAKER_00: North Carolina,
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and South Carolina have just lived through the driest September
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through March since
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SPEAKER_00: 1895.
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SPEAKER_00: Like its recent antithesis, the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene,
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SPEAKER_00: This drought goes way past recent memory.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not just the driest season on record in a generation,
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SPEAKER_00: but the driest in 130 years of keeping local records.
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My hometown and state have not seen a period this dry since the
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time the land was
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worked by mule and the people who farmed it watched the sky
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because from the clouds
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SPEAKER_00: came their downfall or their salvation.
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In my daily life and the paragraphs I text to my clients who
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are hoping for fair
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SPEAKER_00: weather in the hour they're visiting me to hang out with the horses,
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the drought lives in the crispy green grass that isn't growing
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and holds no
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SPEAKER_00: nutrients for forage.
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The drought descended last year when hay farmers should have
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been bailing a last
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SPEAKER_00: cutting to get livestock through the winter.
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SPEAKER_00: That didn't happen.
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SPEAKER_00: We crossed our fingers,
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SPEAKER_00: knocked wood,
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SPEAKER_00: and spat on the ground,
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hoping that our new hay guy would have enough round bales of
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rye to see our herd
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SPEAKER_00: through the winter.
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We rolled the last round bale out to the horses in the pasture
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beside the arena last week.
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SPEAKER_00: Drought-hardy weeds are flourishing.
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SPEAKER_00: The grass is sparse.
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SPEAKER_00: Clover is having a literal field day.
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SPEAKER_00: I like clover.
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SPEAKER_00: I might plant more as we get to know these fields.
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SPEAKER_00: Through the icy winter,
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I longed for spring when the pastures would burst with grasses
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and we could walk
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the fields with an agent from the Agricultural Extension
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Service and make a plan to
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SPEAKER_00: seed new grass and rotate fields.
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Now I'm just longing for a good,
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soaking,
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drenching rain that will bathe the ground surface.
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SPEAKER_00: We're past the point of worrying about the underground water tables.
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SPEAKER_00: We need a band-aid before we can hope for a long-term solution.
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SPEAKER_00: Hay production is at a halt for the first cutting.
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SPEAKER_00: We're not a drought-savvy region.
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SPEAKER_00: Farmers don't irrigate their fields in upstate South Carolina.
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The ground across most of the region has been running 8 to 16
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inches below where it
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SPEAKER_00: should be over the nine months since last July.
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SPEAKER_00: Since the beginning of 2026, we have been 4 to 8 inches short.
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SPEAKER_00: That is not a problem that the next good rain fixes.
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SPEAKER_00: That is not something a wet week erases.
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SPEAKER_00: The land is behind in a way that accumulates.
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Every dry day,
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borrowing against a debt the forecast doesn't have the means to
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repay.
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Too much or not enough What would it take to correct the water
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deficit in my little
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SPEAKER_00: corner of the world?
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SPEAKER_00: In short, the slim chance of a correction is sobering.
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A full drought recovery typically requires 6 to 12 inches of
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above normal rainfall
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SPEAKER_00: delivered over several weeks.
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And those numbers reflect extra precipitation on top of
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whatever normal rainfall
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SPEAKER_00: the region should be receiving.
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SPEAKER_00: As we move into summer,
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SPEAKER_00: a time when the south is accustomed to seasonal drought,
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SPEAKER_00: any rain that falls right now is subject to high evaporative demand,
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SPEAKER_00: which limits its actual benefit.
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and evaporative demand is currently drawing down reservoirs
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already dealing with low inflows.
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Spring and summer heat means a meaningful portion of whatever
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rain falls will
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SPEAKER_00: evaporate before it can soak in and do any restorative work underground.
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December through March is historically when the southeast
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recharges its water
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SPEAKER_00: resources in soils,
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SPEAKER_00: stream flows,
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SPEAKER_00: and groundwater.
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SPEAKER_00: A recharge didn't happen this year.
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meaning the region is entering its warm season with less stored
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water than normal.
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SPEAKER_00: Even if rainfall were to return to near normal values,
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the drought may linger given the accumulated deficits of the
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past nine months.
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SPEAKER_00: And given the severity of this deficit,
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SPEAKER_00: the driest on record,
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many South Carolina regions will likely remain in drought
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status throughout the
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SPEAKER_00: duration of summer this year,
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SPEAKER_00: regardless of any late coming spring rainfall.
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A single good rain or even a good week of rain doesn't fix the
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drought we're experiencing.
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SPEAKER_00: What's needed is a prolonged,
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SPEAKER_00: consistent return to above normal precipitation over months or,
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SPEAKER_00: as older farmers in this region have long understood,
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SPEAKER_00: a tropical system.
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A hurricane or tropical storm delivering slow,
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soaking rain over several days
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has historically been the only thing capable of breaking a
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drought of this depth in
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SPEAKER_00: the southeast.
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SPEAKER_00: But like the current drought's historical rarity,
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these mountains and foothills are still bracing from the recent
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memory of Hurricane
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SPEAKER_00: Helene.
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SPEAKER_00: We either have too much rain, which is deeply destructive, or not enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Red and the Ledger
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While I have watched the shorelines of my neighbor's pond creep
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inward this winter,
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the United Nations met in January and declared that the world
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had entered an era of
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SPEAKER_00: global water bankruptcy.
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SPEAKER_00: A crisis implies a temporary shock that we'll bounce back from.
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SPEAKER_00: Water stress describes high pressure that is still reversible.
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But the scientists at the United Nations University Institute
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for Water Environment
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SPEAKER_00: and Health chose a word that we can all understand bankruptcy.
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SPEAKER_00: We're in a global post crisis condition.
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The damage has accumulated past the point where natural systems
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that hold and
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SPEAKER_00: replenish water cannot bounce back to what they were.
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SPEAKER_00: Kava Madani,
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SPEAKER_00: the director of that institute and the lead author of the report,
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SPEAKER_00: described the current state of water stores like an accountant.
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Nature provides every region with water income from rain and
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snow that accumulate
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SPEAKER_00: from the sky and from most of human history we spent within our means.
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SPEAKER_00: Then we began drawing from savings.
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SPEAKER_00: Then we drew from aquifers that had taken centuries to fill.
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Then we drained the wetlands Then we redirected the rivers Then
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we built cities and
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deserts and watered imported crops grown in land not meant for
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farming We've cashed
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SPEAKER_00: in our savings In finance,
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SPEAKER_00: Madani said,
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SPEAKER_00: when you spend more than you earn for too long,
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you go bankrupt We have done exactly that with our water
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checking and savings
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accounts More than half of the planet's large lakes have lost
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water since 1990
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SPEAKER_00: 70% of major aquifers are in long-term decline.
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An area of wetlands nearly the size of the European Union has
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been erased from the
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SPEAKER_00: earth in 50 years.
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SPEAKER_00: Global glaciers have lost 30% of their mass since 1970.
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SPEAKER_00: Four billion people,
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SPEAKER_00: roughly half the population of this planet,
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SPEAKER_00: experience severe water scarcity for at least one month every year.
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Between 2022 and 2023,
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1.8 billion people were living under active drought conditions.
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SPEAKER_00: The cost of drought impacts globally runs to $307 billion annually.
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SPEAKER_00: Three billion people and more than half of all global food production are
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concentrated in areas where water storage is already declining
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or unstable.
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SPEAKER_00: These are not projections.
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SPEAKER_00: They are not worst case scenarios from a distant future.
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SPEAKER_00: They are current conditions.
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SPEAKER_00: We've heard the names of the places that are being impacted first.
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Kabul is on its way to becoming the first modern city to fully
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run out of water.
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Mexico City is sinking into the ground at a rate of around 20
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inches a year because
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the vast aquifer beneath its streets is being pumped out faster
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than it can
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SPEAKER_00: recover.
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SPEAKER_00: The cities of Jakarta, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City are doing the same.
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SPEAKER_00: In the American Southwest,
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the states that depend on the Colorado River are in continuous
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legal and political
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conflict over how to divide water that no longer exists in the
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quantities the
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SPEAKER_00: original agreements assumed.
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The river's sharing contracts were written for a river that no
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longer exists
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SPEAKER_00: They're working from agreements built on a world that no longer exists,
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SPEAKER_00: governing a resource that has permanently diminished.
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SPEAKER_00: The UN report is direct.
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SPEAKER_00: Many of these systems cannot return to their historical baselines.
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SPEAKER_00: We're not experiencing a gap that a wet year will fix.
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SPEAKER_00: For many of the world's water systems,
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SPEAKER_00: what existed before is simply over,
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SPEAKER_00: and what exists now is the new permanent condition.
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SPEAKER_00: Drought impacts cost the world $307 billion every year,
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but the UN report notes that even financial markets are not
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pricing in water risk
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SPEAKER_00: at the scale the data demands.
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The world powers are handling the water deficit as a pool of
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temporary crises,
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SPEAKER_00: each threat handled in isolation without considering the whole.
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SPEAKER_00: As I sit here typing and watching the neighbors pond through the trees,
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SPEAKER_00: I think about the USDA survey stating that our spring fed two acres will
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SPEAKER_00: theoretically go dry during a 50 year drought.
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Before moving here I never knew that ponds were managed by the
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USDA and the Army
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SPEAKER_00: Corps of Engineers.
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SPEAKER_00: I never knew what it took to make a water reservoir.
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The neighbor's pond is shrinking because the surface water that
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feeds it is not
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SPEAKER_00: being replenished.
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Our pond is deep because of what is stored below the ground
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rather than what falls
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SPEAKER_00: from above,
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SPEAKER_00: but eventually the invisible will be made visible.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm watching the shoreline move.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing the margin narrow.
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The United Nations did not issue its report about the pond at
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Lavender Hill.
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SPEAKER_00: It details Kabul and Mexico City,
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SPEAKER_00: the Colorado River,
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and the aquifers beneath cities where two billion people live
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on ground that is
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SPEAKER_00: slowly collapsing beneath them.
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SPEAKER_00: But the mechanism is the same.
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SPEAKER_00: The language of bankruptcy,
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SPEAKER_00: spending what cannot be replaced,
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SPEAKER_00: drawing down savings that took centuries to accumulate,
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SPEAKER_00: describes what I can see from the edge of my own property.
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SPEAKER_00: We are all at every scale watching the same shoreline.
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SPEAKER_00: The land remembers us back.
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SPEAKER_00: It rained on Saturday.
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SPEAKER_00: We hadn't received the ground-drenching,
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SPEAKER_00: debt-erasing rain we needed,
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SPEAKER_00: but it rained during lessons,
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SPEAKER_00: and nobody melted.
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SPEAKER_00: The horses were just fine.
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SPEAKER_00: Well,
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SPEAKER_00: the boys crowded into their shelter in the cemetery field,
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SPEAKER_00: angling for the best cover like little slinking sharks.
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SPEAKER_00: We were glad for every drop that fell.
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SPEAKER_00: When the rain finally comes after a dry spell,
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SPEAKER_00: you don't run for cover,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: unless you're in the boys' field.
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SPEAKER_00: You stand in it.
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SPEAKER_00: I did my twilight fence check as a slow mist continued to fall.
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The light was soft and hazy around the edges,
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mist weaving through the drought tolerant weeds.
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The grass smelled alive,
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and as I walked,
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I watched the blades visibly start greening.
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SPEAKER_00: Along the way, I passed through an oak grove.
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Each tree carried a distinct scent,
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like an olfactory record of its history.
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SPEAKER_00: I stopped and buried my nose in wet bark.
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Though the trees are old and reaching,
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there's scent caught in my body like recalling a memory.
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SPEAKER_00: I was flooded with the full sensory pull of deja vu.
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SPEAKER_00: All those scents contain chemistry.
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SPEAKER_00: Rainfall carries nitrogen from the atmosphere directly to the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: It's free fertilizer delivered from the sky.
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SPEAKER_00: A supply chain that can't be damaged by shipping lane closures.
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SPEAKER_00: I say this because the Strait of Hormuz,
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the narrow passage through which a significant portion of the
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world's fertilizer
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SPEAKER_00: supply moves,
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SPEAKER_00: has been disrupted and the cost and availability of synthetic nitrogen is
20:06
astronomically increasing the cost of fertilizer that domestic
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farmers rely on.
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SPEAKER_00: Rainfall is not just water, it is nutrition.
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the most ancient and elegant delivery system on earth and
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humans have tried forever
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to replicate it and engineer around it we always come up short
20:27
the oak grove in
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this cemetery pasture has been receiving rain for longer than
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this country has been
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keeping records it was there before the pond was dug it was
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there before the
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SPEAKER_00: subdivisions began to grow within the fields
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It was there when the people buried in that pasture was still
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alive and working
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SPEAKER_00: this land by hand and watching the same sky I watch now,
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SPEAKER_00: hoping for rain.
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Gen X Flashback 1999 was the year the pond at Lavender Hill was
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excavated and the
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SPEAKER_00: U.S.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Drought Monitor was established.
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SPEAKER_00: It was also the year my grandfather,
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a man who had lived through enough history to know that the
21:13
future was not
21:14
SPEAKER_00: guaranteed,
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SPEAKER_00: cashed out his investments,
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SPEAKER_00: bought a farm,
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SPEAKER_00: and started stacking supplies.
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SPEAKER_00: Y2K was coming, and he was not going to be caught unprepared.
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SPEAKER_00: He had a different last name than I did, so I used him as a case study.
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He was a character and a feature story about the upcoming turn
21:33
of the millennium.
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SPEAKER_00: For the fortunes my grandfather made in the radio industry,
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SPEAKER_00: he trusted the land more than the inventions built on it.
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He was preparing for the collapse of the digital infrastructure
21:47
on which the modern
21:48
SPEAKER_00: world had come to depend,
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SPEAKER_00: and he wasn't wrong to take it seriously.
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SPEAKER_00: He was also,
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SPEAKER_00: as it turned out,
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SPEAKER_00: preparing for something that didn't arrive in the form he expected.
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SPEAKER_00: The computers didn't fail at midnight on New Year's Eve 1999.
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SPEAKER_00: They kept going.
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SPEAKER_00: They multiplied.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: People laughed at their folly and went back to their lives,
22:10
SPEAKER_00: their lawns,
22:11
SPEAKER_00: and their water taps,
22:12
SPEAKER_00: all of which were soon to be controlled by even more computers.
22:16
And the running of these machines has become one of the
22:19
quietest claims on water
22:21
SPEAKER_00: that no one anticipated or prepared for.
22:25
In 1999,
22:26
data center water consumption was so negligible that nobody was
22:30
tracking it.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: That is not the case now.
22:33
American data centers consume an estimated 449 million gallons
22:38
of water every day.
22:40
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects that figure
22:44
could double or
22:45
SPEAKER_00: quadruple by 2028.
22:48
Data centers in Texas alone are expected to use as much as 399
22:53
billion gallons of
22:54
SPEAKER_00: water by 2030,
22:56
SPEAKER_00: enough to lower Lake Mead by more than 16 feet in a single year.
23:01
Two-thirds of all American data centers built since 2022 have
23:06
been sited in areas
23:07
SPEAKER_00: already classified as high water stress regions.
23:12
Scientists at the University of California Riverside estimate
23:17
that every 100-word
23:19
SPEAKER_00: AI prompt consumes roughly one bottle of water.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Every search, every query, every generated paragraph.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: My grandfather was afraid the machines would stop.
23:33
He couldn't have known that what we'd need to worry about was
23:36
the cost of keeping them running.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: 26 years later,
23:40
as I watched my neighbor's pond shrink and I rolled the last
23:44
big rye bale out to
23:45
SPEAKER_00: our fields,
23:47
I realized that my grandfather was not wrong about society
23:50
being vulnerable.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: He just had the timeline wrong.
23:54
The moment when the systems we depend on reveal themselves as
23:57
more fragile than we
23:59
SPEAKER_00: thought isn't coming as a digital glitch at the stroke of midnight.
24:03
It's slinking here slowly and the drop of shorelines,
24:07
aquifers,
24:08
and rain gauges.
24:11
The difference between 1999 and now is that in 1999 we were
24:16
afraid of a specific date.
24:18
We could see it coming on the calendar,
24:20
prepare for it,
24:21
and exhale when it passed.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: What we are living inside now has no date on the calendar.
24:27
It's been arriving for decades in increments too small to feel
24:31
on a normal day,
24:32
SPEAKER_00: which is exactly why so many smart,
24:35
SPEAKER_00: caring,
24:35
aware people have no idea until perhaps right now that we are
24:40
in the driest stretch
24:41
SPEAKER_00: this region has seen since Grover Cleveland was president.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Field Notes
24:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to fill you with doom.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: We just need to be more aware and start seeing where we can take action.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: The more I answered clients weather questions this week,
25:03
SPEAKER_00: the more I realized that I have the luxury of perspective.
25:07
I live and work outside every single day and I have no other
25:11
choice but to pay
25:12
SPEAKER_00: attention to what's happening on the land.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Deeper than that, the move from the old farm to the new
25:19
SPEAKER_00: has driven home the difference between healthy soil and thirsty ground.
25:24
As I wear a path on the walk to the boys' field,
25:28
I know in my bones that the land is not done.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: It just needs us to listen.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: The oak grove is not done.
25:37
The underground spring that keeps our pond full when the
25:40
surface water is gone is
25:42
SPEAKER_00: still moving,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: still cold,
25:44
SPEAKER_00: still finding its way through rocks.
25:47
The clover that took over the pasture while the grass went
25:50
sparse is fixing
25:51
nitrogen into the soil on its own without any help from humans
25:56
the way it's done
25:57
since before there were farms here or fences or anyone keeping
26:00
records of the
26:01
rainfall The nitrogen the rain delivered on Saturday is already
26:05
in the ground It's
26:07
raining more this morning The natural world is not waiting for
26:11
us to solve the
26:12
SPEAKER_00: water problem
26:14
SPEAKER_00: The earth craves balance, even when we're standing in its way.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: The seasons work through the constraints that they've been given,
26:22
finding a path through and converting what's available into
26:26
what's needed.
26:27
It's been doing this through every drought in the 130 years of
26:31
records and in the
26:32
SPEAKER_00: thousands of years before anyone was keeping them.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: The question is not whether the land can adapt.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: The land will outlast all of us.
26:42
The question is whether we are paying attention enough to adapt
26:45
alongside it.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: My grandfather's instincts were not wrong.
26:50
The right response to a fragile system is to pay attention and
26:54
to get to know your
26:55
SPEAKER_00: land and water.
26:57
It's up to us to figure out where the spring is and how deep
27:00
the aquifer runs beneath our feet.
27:03
The right response is to understand the grasses and save your
27:07
hay and ask your
27:09
neighbors what's happening with their shoreline instead of
27:12
making up stories about
27:13
SPEAKER_00: why it's dropping.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And when the rain finally comes,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: even if it's not enough,
27:19
we can stand in it for a minute instead of rushing beneath the
27:22
roof and viewing it
27:23
SPEAKER_00: as an inconvenience.
27:25
You can bury your nose in the wet bark of an oak tree that has
27:29
survived everything
27:30
SPEAKER_00: that humans and weather have done to it for longer than any record shows.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: You breathe in.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: You smell the nitrogen.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: You feel the ground receive what the sky is offering.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And then you go back inside and tell people what you saw.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Because we're all living on the same shoreline.
27:51
But some of us just happen to be standing close enough to the
27:55
water to hear the waves.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Love Kim