Muddy thinking

When I was in Catholic middle school, I wrote a lot of anti-war poems. Sister Patrine, one of my teachers, despaired at my negativity.

“I want you to write a poem about the beauty of a mud puddle!” she ordered me. I rolled my eyes.

Instead, I wrote a poem from the perspective of the blind man healed by Jesus. That, at least, was an interesting mental exercise; I pretended I was blind and described what it would be like to suddenly see.

Sr. Patrine loved the poem, and got off my back about the mud puddles.

I thought of her this week when rivers of rainwater poured through our backyard, bringing dirty floods into our garage. The water knocked over our garbage can at the curb and carried it down the street, wedging it under a car. It was so cold and nasty that I refused to go to the gym.

But on an impulse I did suit up in rain gear and ran outside briefly, to see if I could grab some images of  mud puddles during the storm. It was tough going, as I was also trying to protect my camera and keep the lens from getting smeared and fogged.

There was just enough light to capture some of the streams:

And the painterly patterns:

Today, after ferocious overnight storms, the rain stopped. I had a more leisurely time to explore mud puddles and improvised streams. And, Sr. Patrine, the beauty was so easy to see. 

Reflections and patterns leaped out at me. The sky and trees dancing on the surfaces. 

The rush of water and the resistances that formed small paintings. 

Walking with my head down has never been so uplifting.