Puddles & I

The rain makes puddles outside my gate. The water mixes with the mud making brownish gray liquid. The steady drizzling makes tiny lilliputian ripples in the pool. I fold up my denims halfway up my calf and step at first gingerly into the water, trying to keep parts of my feet dry.

But then my foot lands on a pebble and slips into the water. I feel the cold cold water flow over my toes. I crinkle them. And as I feel my feet enjoying the cold sensation, I give up all pretence of trying to keep them dry and walk straight in. As I walk the edges of my floaters cause water to spurt upwards in thin streams. For a moment it looks like tiny droplets of water are climbing upwards on invisible threads.

I feel the water under my soles. Under the arch of my foot. It slides by between my feet and my floaters. It tickles my skin.

I stop in the middle of the pothole-pond. As I stand there in my folded jeans...slightly wet on the folded edge, tiny drops of rain pecking at my cheek, feet immersed in cold brown water till my ankles, I think back to countless other walks in the water, and I feel a kind of contentment. The innocent happiness of wet feet, wrinkled toes, raindrops on your face and your favourite pair of old jeans...folded up and still very wet.