Behind the Puddle

The puddle has never actually told me anything. I feel like that should probably be clarified. Pinecone has also offered very little useful advice. Stella and Stanley have not provided guidance. Shelly remains unavailable for comment.

And yet I have spent months writing about things I have learned while sitting here. Maybe that’s because not everything that teaches us uses words.

Sometimes we learn because we watch. A leaf lets go. A bird leaves. Rain comes and the puddle rises. Heat comes and it falls. A squirrel discovers several increasingly creative ways to acquire food. Baby geese grow. Mallards become harder to distinguish from the adults.

Morning becomes evening. Summer becomes autumn. Nothing explains itself. It simply happens. And if I sit here long enough, I begin recognizing things.

Change doesn’t require permission. Growth doesn’t happen at the same pace for everyone. Some things return. Some don’t. A quiet day is still a day. Life adapts. Weather passes. Nothing stays exactly the same.

And apparently squirrels are remarkably committed to their goals.

I think I spent a lot of my life believing wisdom came from answers. Someone wiser knew more. They understood why things happened. They could explain what an experience meant. They knew the lesson.

But the older I get, the less convinced I am that every experience comes with a lesson neatly tucked inside it.

Sometimes something beautiful happens. Sometimes something terrible happens. Sometimes something makes absolutely no sense. And maybe wisdom isn’t always finding a meaning that makes it easier. Sometimes wisdom may be recognizing what is true without requiring it to explain itself.

That person mattered to me. That hurt. That was beautiful. I wish it had been different. I don’t understand why it happened. I’m grateful I experienced it. I miss what used to be. I’m glad something changed.

Those can all be complete thoughts. They don’t necessarily require a lesson afterward.

Nature seems comfortable with that.

The leaves don’t fall to teach me about release. They’re leaves. They’re doing what leaves do. The geese aren’t demonstrating community for my benefit. Pinecone isn’t performing a lesson in persistence. Although Pinecone is certainly committed to the material.

I am the one who watches and recognizes something familiar in what I see.

Maybe that’s an important distinction. Nature doesn’t exist to provide metaphors for my life. But when I pay attention to something outside myself, I sometimes understand something inside myself differently.

I see a tree that has been changed by storms and still grows. I watch wildlife adapt to conditions they cannot control. I see seasons arrive without asking whether I am ready.

And none of it gives me an answer. It gives me perspective.

Perhaps wisdom isn’t collecting enough lessons that eventually we have life figured out. Maybe wisdom is becoming more comfortable admitting how much remains unexplained.

Knowing when to act. Knowing when to wait. Knowing when to ask. Knowing when to listen. And occasionally knowing when to stop trying to turn something into a lesson and simply let it be what it was.

Behind the puddle, October continues changing the landscape without saying a word. I think I’ll keep watching. Not because I expect nature to give me answers.

But because paying attention keeps teaching me better questions.