Requiem for a puddle /continuing on

This is a picture of the puddle at the end of our driveway – the puddle that used to be there. It was a natural tank (according to Mr. A, who speaks the language of water) formed by a soil structure so compacted that water could not drain from it at all, so any time it rained it would fill up and remain a happy spot for birds and creatures to come bathe, play, and drink, until all the water evaporated. It was placed perfectly for watching from the living room window and we spent hours enjoying all the wildlife that came by to use it. In warm weather we would sometimes fill it from the hose, as a larger-scale addition to the other watering holes we maintain around the property.

I don't remember if I've mentioned that someone is building a huge new house on the next lot over but one. Well, they are. Not to go into it ... and they seem like nice enough people ... but I can't say I really appreciate what they're doing with the space, and now the road crew they hired to regrade and repave a section of road in front of their house (kind of a weird thing to do, don't you think?) has destroyed our little natural bird pond.

They'd been driving heavy equipment up and down the road for several days, and parking various tractors and graders and backhoes all on top of the wildflowers we planted along the road in front of the house. The night before it happened, Mr. A and I were talking about how clumsy and destructive they were being, and hoping they wouldn't break the edges of the puddle by driving their heavy wheels over it. Before we went to bed, he went out and set up a ring of orange traffic cones around it (he has stuff like that around the house, for his work) and connected them with a long piece of rope, as a way of tactfully reminding them to steer clear.

The next afternoon I got home from an appointment and found the entire area patched over with a big slab of shiny black asphalt.

My heart just dropped when I saw it. It isn't even connected to the rest of the project – the section they were working on starts ten feet or more away from it. All I can imagine is that they must have thought they were doing something nice for us by repairing what they saw as an enormous pothole at the end of our driveway.

I know a hole full of water might seem like a stupid thing to want to keep, but to us it was beautiful. I hadn't noticed how often I used to look out the window to see what kinds of creatures might be there, or just to look at the reflection of the sky and clouds, until I found myself looking out the window and seeing only a big ugly slab. I've taken countless pictures of it over the last six years and loved looking at it in all kinds of weather and light conditions ... walked in it barefoot and in my rubber boots, played with Tater in it ... ridden my bike through it and enjoyed the water whooshing up around my tires ....

And now, just like that, it's gone forever. We may make another pond somewhere but it won't be the same, and I suppose in the greater scheme of things this is all really just fine, totally OK. A reminder of impermanence – a useful experience to practice on. Still, I wanted to acknowledge it as a loss. And more than that, acknowledge that I really did love it while it was here, and remember to be grateful for the ability I have to see beauty where others may not. I get a lot of enjoyment out of life that way.

Other than that, what else? We are still having lots of birds and animals moving in for the spring and summer. We don't feed them, because they stay healthier if they eat the foods they forage for on their own, the foods they're evolved to eat, but we do keep water out for them and from any part of the house or yard you can pretty much always see some bird splashing or drinking from one of the water features. The bluebird boxes we built on Valentine's day are attracting a good amount of attention, though no bluebirds seem to have actually started nesting in them yet. It may be that the wood is still too new, or the boxes too close to the other bluebird boxes, and we'll end up with some other kind of birds living in them this year.

Easter came and went and the "morning mile" has remained a daily practice for the Taterman and me. I should have known that would happen; now that he's in the habit of doing it every day, he looks forward to it even more than I do and looks at me like I'm crazy if I try to do anything around the house before leashing up and heading out. Yesterday when we got back he was astonished to be loaded directly into the car and taken to the vet for his spring tune-up – teeth cleaned, feet shaved for foxtail season, and various other doggie details taken care of. His feet look super tiny and weird now that they're all shaved and clipped, but I'll be shaving him down all over for the summer pretty soon anyway and it'll all look much more proportional then.

I took my first stats midterm last week. Haven't got the grade back yet but I left feeling like I'd done really well. We'll see.

A few weeks ago I was given my first hospice volunteer assignment, and then got a call a few days before my first scheduled visit, letting me know my patient had already died. So I'm back on the list, to be called next time someone starts service who could use me.

What else? There must be something interesting to report ... or maybe there isn't. I have been having the strangest sensation in the mornings lately, when I first wake up, that every day is the same as the day before ... sort of that Groundhog Day kind of feeling. On the up side, my anxiety is mostly pretty much under control and my blood sugar has come back down again too, for which I'm grateful. It was really getting up there for awhile there – not to truly dangerous levels, but higher than I like to see it – and I finally figured out that it was because I really and truly do need to exercise for 60-90 minutes every day, no matter how carefully I'm eating. Good to know, and I'm glad it still works, at least for now. I saw a woman with double amputations at the nursing home recently and that really motivated me to step it up a bit, while I still can.

Man, does everything that comes out of my mouth today seem really maudlin and depressing and negative? I don't mean it to be. It's true that I still haven't totally recovered the energy and joie de vivre I've felt at other times in my life ... but that's OK, isn't it? I still do love my life and the beauty of the world, even if I'm not as aggressively spunky and perky as the adorably gravel-voiced 28-year-old blonde spokeswomen with the choppy short haircuts on commercial tv. Do you know the ones I mean?

Maybe this is one of those times I just need to exercise some faith. I read this passage this morning in a book on that topic, by Sharon Salzberg. About a walk in the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco she writes:

I stepped onto the pathway and happily began to follow its twists and turns. I could see that I was very close to the goal – the rosette at the center – when strangely, I found the path taking me back out to the edge again, away from, not toward the rosette. Puzzled, I stopped, wondering if I had made a mistake. But as there was only the one path to follow, I kept going. After circumambulating the center several times – moving closer, then once again away, then very near the rosette, and back to the edge – all at once I found myself there in the very center. I had attained the goal, not by knowing precisely where I was going, but simply by continuing on.

Anyway! I did love having that puddle in my life, that's mainly what I checked in to say. Happily, the world is full of countless quiet lovely little pleasures like that, all just waiting to be discovered.