Behind the Puddle

Tomorrow, according to the calendar, autumn begins. Of course, the puddle has never been particularly interested in calendars. The trees will not all change overnight. The temperature may still feel like summer. The birds won’t wake up tomorrow and announce a seasonal transition.

Life rarely changes that neatly. But there is something about standing at a threshold that makes me want to turn around for just a minute before stepping across it. I don’t want to go backward. Sometimes, looking back is how we recognize what came with us.

This summer gave me a patio. Technically, that’s true. It gave me some pavers behind the house, a chair, and a place where I could get outside more easily and spend time beside a puddle that has been behind our home for years. It sounds so small when I say it that way. But it didn’t stay small.

I started sitting here, and then I started noticing. I noticed the birds, geese, mallards, Stella and Stanley, Shelly, Pinecone, changing water, weather, sounds, and the way the light moved across the yard. Then, I began noticing other things.

I noticed how much I enjoyed sitting beside Brian without needing to do anything, how differently the girls see the same world, and how much life can happen in a place I thought I already knew. I recognized how an ordinary morning can matter without anything important happening. Eventually, I began noticing myself. That part surprised me. I thought I was watching the puddle, but apparently, the puddle gave me somewhere to watch my own life too.

That’s what reflection can do. It lets us see the story that wasn’t visible while we were busy living each individual day. At the beginning of summer, I couldn’t have known what any of this would become. Most of the things that mattered didn’t announce themselves as important. They were simply moments.

Those moments included a bird landing, a granddaughter asking a question, a squirrel stealing food, rain falling, a conversation, a quiet evening, or a day when nothing happened. Only now, looking backward, can I see how those moments began connecting to one another. Maybe that’s why reflection matters before moving forward.

We don’t reflect so we can decide whether we lived the season correctly. We don’t need to make a list of accomplishments. We don’t have to identify a lesson from every difficult thing that happened. Sometimes, there isn’t a lesson. Sometimes, something simply hurt.

But even then, looking back can help us recognize what we are carrying. It can show us what mattered, what changed, what we learned, what we loved, what we survived, what we want to leave behind, and what we hope comes with us. Tomorrow may officially be autumn.

The puddle will still be the puddle. I will still sit in the same chair, and Brian will still have his. The dogs will still wander in and out, and the birds will still expect their feeders to be filled. Life will continue.

But I won’t enter this season as exactly the same person who entered summer. None of us ever do. Every season leaves something behind in us. Maybe before we hurry into whatever comes next, it is worth turning around once in a while.

We do not turn around to stay there. We turn only long enough to recognize that something mattered, changed us, and is coming with us. Then, we can turn toward what comes next.