So, Joel’s been wrecking down the dam by the bridge this week. Mom is convinced the muskrats built it, but they’ve lived on the lake for years now, and the dam is a thing of the last few years. Beavers or muskrats, though, the rodents responsible for the dam are very determined beasts indeed, and every time we’ve opened the channel again, they’ve stopped it with a little extra wood and muck. Some family friends told us that putting holey pipes through the channel confuses the rodents, thus another attempt by Joel to—as Kathy would say—outsmart the rodents.
All of this to introduce the background to Joel coming into our room and telling me that he sat on the bridge for a few minutes after work and watched the water run past his feet. He said it was all muddy for a while, and he was waiting for it to clear so he could watch the individual bits of leave and stick drift by, when he went from watching under the water to watching the reflection of the sky, the trees, the thousands of leaves, the willow trunk reaching horizontally across the water. He said—jokingly, I think—that he would’ve drawn a spiritual application, except that it would be too reminiscent of mom’s reflection post. He said he wanted to remember it and maybe post about it, but he thought he’d probably forget.
I didn’t.
