For the last three days, most of my relationship with the puddle has happened through a window.
The rain has come and gone, sometimes lightly and sometimes enough to make going outside simply not worth it. By this evening, the rain gauge was sitting just shy of two inches, which feels like a pretty good accounting of where those inside days went. Apparently, the puddle was keeping track too.
When I finally came back outside this afternoon, the water was noticeably higher. Places that had become shallow, muddy, or crowded with late-summer growth were water again. And standing in the middle of it was one of our familiar visitors.
Stella or Stanley, I still can’t tell you which, was slowly wading through the puddle as though the last several rainy days had been personally arranged for their return.
There is something especially comforting about seeing a familiar creature after being away for a few days.
Nothing extraordinary happened. The heron didn’t perform for me or offer some grand lesson about resilience, patience, or the changing seasons. It simply stood there, occasionally taking another long-legged step through the water, doing whatever herons do when nobody is asking them to mean anything. But sometimes familiar is enough.
The last few days have reminded me how much of my everyday rhythm has become connected to sitting beside this little patch of water. Inside days aren’t bad days. They have their own purpose, and Iowa certainly isn’t going to stop having rain, cold, sleet, snow, or the occasional weather event that makes patio time a ridiculous suggestion.
Still, I notice the difference when I haven’t been here. And perhaps that is part of what makes an afternoon like this feel like a welcome rather than simply another day outside.
The rain came. The puddle filled. The heron returned. And eventually, so did I.
Sometimes home isn’t the place that stays exactly the same while we’re gone. Sometimes it is the place where we come back and discover what changed while we were inside.
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