Today wasn’t a patio day.
The rain came in waves, and the air was so heavy that even stepping outside felt like work. Instead of spending the day behind the puddle, we spent it running errands, watching the weather through a windshield instead of from our chairs.
Along the way I came across this quote, and it stayed with me.
“Being steady doesn’t necessarily mean being calm…”
It made me think about the puddle.
When I first began sitting outside every day, I think I unconsciously expected “good” days to be the quiet ones, the still water, the blue sky, the herons standing motionless along the shore. But the longer I’ve watched, the more I’ve realized that nature isn’t steady because it’s calm.
It’s steady because it’s always present.
Some days it arrives with wind that bends the grasses. Some days with thunderstorms that send every bird searching for shelter. Some days the water rises. Some days it almost disappears. And here in Iowa, every season asks the landscape to become something completely different than it was a few months before.
None of that makes it any less itself.
Maybe that’s true for us, too.
Steadiness isn’t about feeling peaceful every day. It isn’t pretending grief, joy, frustration, excitement, or exhaustion aren’t there. It is simply being willing to meet the day we have, instead of wishing for another one.
The puddle has been teaching me that all summer.
Not to be calm.
Just to be present.
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