Behind the Puddle

Yesterday, I was invited to spend the afternoon with Judy and the women of Grace in Aging.

There was no patio, no heron standing along the edge, no goose wandering through the yard, and no actual puddle anywhere in sight. But somewhere in the middle of listening to their stories, talking over conversation questions around the room, and following one question into another, I realized I knew this place.

It felt a lot like being Behind the Puddle.

Maybe that sounds strange, but the best moments at the puddle have never really been about knowing exactly what I am looking at. They have been about noticing. Staying curious. Paying attention long enough for something ordinary to become meaningful.

That is what happened around Judy’s living room.

We talked about aging, caregiving, death, decisions, family, the things we hope other people understand about us, and some of the things people simply have to figure out as they go. We used several of the Behind the Puddle Conversation Card Questions we have been developing, but the questions were only openings. The important part was what happened after someone read one aloud.

A story followed. Then another person remembered something. Someone wondered aloud. Someone else saw the question differently. And every so often, a simple question became something much larger than what had been printed on the paper.

That is exactly what I had hoped these questions might someday do.

I went into the afternoon on very little sleep and far less confidence than I would have liked. By the time I arrived, part of me was fairly convinced I might discover that something which made perfect sense while sitting behind my own puddle did not work nearly as well when I carried it into someone else’s room.

Instead, I found myself breathing. I could listen.

I could lean into someone’s story and ask another question without needing to know where the conversation would end. When something moved into an area where a legal or other professional answer was needed, I could help point toward places where better information could be found without pretending I needed to be the person with every answer.

For a little while, it really was the puddle without the physical puddle.

One of the most unexpected gifts of the afternoon happened when a quest read some of my Puddle Stories aloud.

I have written a lot of words from this little corner of the world. People have told me they read them, shared them, responded to them, and even used them to begin conversations of their own. But until yesterday, I had never actually sat in a room and heard another person give one of those stories her own voice.

I heard the places where she naturally slowed down. I heard sentences become softer. I heard words receive emphasis I had never consciously given them while writing. And for the first time, I got to experience one of my own stories partly as a listener.

There was something unexpectedly moving about hearing words that began quietly behind my puddle travel into another person, then come back to me sounding just a little different because another human being had carried them for a moment.

And then, because apparently no Behind the Puddle gathering should end without something wonderfully unexpected, I came home with a frog.

Not just any frog.

Ron Strohbehn made this wonderfully unique little fellow from horseshoes, complete with bright eyes, a pink tongue, and considerably more personality than I would have expected a collection of horseshoes to possess.

He is now officially part of the puddle. I suspect he will be very good at his new job.

So thank you, Judy, for reading the stories, sharing them with your friends, inviting me into your gathering, and trusting me with conversations that matter. Thank you to the women of Grace in Aging for your stories, your questions, your openness, your laughter, and your willingness to let a few questions take us wherever they happened to lead. And thank you, Ron, for the frog.

I went there thinking I was bringing a little piece of Behind the Puddle with me. I came home realizing they had given some of it back. Perhaps that is what happens when we make enough room for a real conversation.

The puddle gets a little bigger.