A handful of dirt

A handful of dirt would not be nearly enough to stop the lagooning (lagoonification?) of my backyard. Which just yesterday hid under scattered piles of snow but today is fully flooded. Rain falls and snow melts faster than the parched earth can absorb them, so the water pools, waiting to evaporate or sink into the soggy soil.

It’s all the same water, I think? Don’t quote me on this, but I think it is true that the same basic amount of water has existed since we have and it just cycles through – dissolving into gas, liquefying, and then freezing solid over and over again. Under the ground, up in the atmosphere, sloshing in a river, flowing from my faucet, flushing down my drain. This water makes up a huge percent of our planet and our bodies. Pumping through pipes like our hearts pump our blood – water is the blood of life! Ha ha. Or maybe it’s just the water of life. Maybe everything doesn’t have to be so serious, so profound, so… ornamentalized. Maybe water is just water – magical enough on its own without needing to be festooned in ribbons or metaphors.

Maybe I think too much. Or not enough. Or probably both, somehow. Today my brain is tired. Or, no – it’s my imagination that’s tired. Sometimes life is just life. Sometimes all the stories we create in our human brains get in the way – distract from what is right in front of us – so blindingly beautiful we can barely look straight at it without our eyes protectively squeezing shut to block out the onslaught: the sheer, overwhelming brilliance of the mundane.