Swimming Upstream in Heels and Skinny Pants
The New York Times
If I were a salmon, I would die for my child. As a human being, I wish I could have.
I can’t stop thinking about salmon. Recently we had salmon spawning season here in Seattle, and I was able to see it for the first time. I am not a scientist, much less a marine biologist or fish expert or even a YouTube-educated hobbyist, but here’s what I have learned: It’s beautiful.
The salmon must know they’re near the end of their lives, so they swim upstream with the last of their energy. There, the female salmon find a safe place to build a nest, which they do with their tails, moving around mud and rocks to make a perfect home. The male salmon then come courting, and when the female finds a male she likes, she lays her eggs in her nest and her male of choice fertilizes them.
Left alone with her newly incubated eggs, the female then lies on top of or beside her nest and dies so that her body’s nutrients can feed her babies.
