Behind the Puddle

There are twelve bags of river rock in the back of the Jeep.

For anyone who has followed the journey Behind the Puddle, this probably isn’t particularly surprising. I’ve never been shy about my affection for rocks, especially river rocks. I’ve collected them on weekday adventures with the girls, weekend outings, and even the occasional adventure on my own. Some people bring home souvenirs. Apparently, I bring home rocks.

But these twelve bags have a slightly different story.

When we originally built the patio, we purchased materials from Menards, and those purchases eventually produced rebates. We still had some of those rebates left, and as it turns out, the patio had another little request.

There is a stretch of ground between the new pavers and the original, untouched grass that has stubbornly refused to grow anything resembling a lawn. We’ve given it opportunities, but the mud seems perfectly content to remain mud.

And while I appreciate persistence, I think the mud has made its intentions clear.

So Brian and I decided to stop asking that particular piece of ground to become something it apparently has no interest in becoming. Instead, we’re going to give it a new purpose, with river rocks in various sizes filling the space between where the patio ends and the grass begins.

And because we had those remaining rebates, the patio actually helped pay for its own next chapter.

I rather like that.

When we began this whole adventure, I told Brian that the patio was about access, not aesthetics. We weren’t trying to create something for a magazine or impress anyone passing by. We wanted a place where we could comfortably spend time outdoors, enjoy our little corner of the world, and see what happened when we made room for ordinary life.

What happened, of course, was considerably more than either of us anticipated.

The patio gave us the Puddle Stories, familiar visitors, unexpected friendships, and a different way of paying attention to the world immediately around us. It has become a place where ordinary moments have a way of teaching us something we didn’t know we needed to learn.

And now, apparently, it has given us rocks.

There is something rather comforting about realizing that not every part of a project has to work out the way we originally imagined. Sometimes the grass doesn’t grow. Sometimes the ground stays muddy. Sometimes the solution isn’t to keep insisting that our original plan was the right one.

Sometimes we simply pay attention to what is happening and make room for something different.

I don’t know exactly how all twelve bags will look once they’re emptied and the rocks have found their places. I suspect we’ll move a few around, stand back and look, and perhaps decide another bag or two might be necessary.

That’s usually how these things go around here.

But I know that every time I look at that little stretch of river rock, I’ll remember that it wasn’t part of the original plan. It came from a problem we couldn’t quite solve the way we’d intended, a handful of rebates from a project that keeps giving back, and a lifelong affection for the kinds of things that rivers leave behind.

The yard needed something. We listened.

And we’re going to fill that need, one bag at a time.

Behind the Puddle, even the muddy places get another chance to become something beautiful.