Wayside Magic - Variations on a Theme

I know they're weeds. But I can't help it. 

I love the way the light catches on them. I love the way they hold the light. 

Nobody else loves them, but I can't help but think they hold magic as they catch the sun. 

 

Solace

 

Sometimes you need the sea. Sometimes the sea and soft falling rain is enough. 

The world will be the same the next day, but sometimes the sea is enough. 

Ocean

 

Happiness is the ocean. Happiness is the ocean and days of cool and gentle rain.

Wayside Pools

Running from wayside pool to wayside pool my younger girls play in waterlogged evening light. They delight in the feel of the water, the abundant life of tadpoles, dragonflies and the odd unexpected noises of the frogs.

Water is their favourite plaything. This is their second walk and play in the pools of the day - and they've enjoyed the mud around the house in-between. We started the walk with a warriors coating of mud and ended it with more. 

They luxuriate in the sensations, the found things, and again I wonder all that we lost when we began to live so much within four walls.

 

Not even your toes

For most of the eighteen months we've lived in our small town the stream we pass on our walk has run dry. On either side of the road there has been merely the hard dirt stream bed.

 

The recent rains have changed that. 

A week ago our local dam was down to 4% capacity. Now it's at 66% capacity. It is not a small dam. 

There is an amazing amount of water around, and we are all loving it.  

The younger children love walking with us to the stream to see its fast rushing mass, listening out for the sound of the moving water as we make our way down the hillside. 

We experimented with throwing leaves, rocks, and eventually branches into the water to see what happened, watching as they were caught in the currents and swept into the mess of whitewater. 

My brother and I stayed close, within lunging reach, and warned - repeatedly, you never, ever, ever go into flood water, not even your little toes. See, see what happens to the branch, see how it's swept away and then gets trapped on the otherside of the road. Step back, just a bit further back. 

They listen, but our warnings are a sideshow to the delight of throwing in their pieces of debris, squabbling over who gets to throw in what. 

They don't know it, but they're running a science experiment - working out which things float most, which things remain visible, which things disappear quickly, how fast and powerfully the shallow water moves. 

I hope they remember the learning and delight of the water.