Our end of the puddle truly looks like the definition of a puddle today. We haven’t had much rain lately, and the water that usually stretches across the view has been reduced to shallow patches surrounded by algae, mud, and exposed ground. It isn’t particularly beautiful by the standards we usually use to describe water. But apparently, it is still enough.
My phone has been down today, so most of the birds have come and gone without photographs. There have been so many flying visitors passing through while I have been working, and for once I have mostly had to simply notice them instead of trying to capture them. When I finally had a break, I looked up to see what might be happening in the puddle. The Lone Goose was still there.
He wasn’t doing anything remarkable. He was standing in one of the remaining shallow patches of water, eventually tucking his head into his feathers in that familiar resting position. There was no flock surrounding him and no great wildlife moment unfolding. He had simply decided that this little bit of water was a perfectly acceptable place to spend part of his day.
There is something about that I love more than I can quite explain. While I worked on the patio with my head buried in my iPad, he rested in the puddle, and for a little while we were simply occupying our familiar places together. Neither of us needed anything from the other. I only needed to look up to know he was there.
Maybe that is one of the things this little puddle keeps teaching me. A place does not have to be at its fullest to still have value, and a moment does not have to be remarkable to matter. Sometimes what remains is enough to offer someone a place to rest. Sometimes simply knowing someone else is there is still enough.
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