Where There is Mud, There Is Water

A few months ago, in the thick of a seemingly inescapable brain fog, I woke up to these words in my minds eye: “Where there is mud, there is water”. Hearing this prompted a pause, especially since it had been a while since I’d received a message with such clarity. I felt like a rusty satellite; instantly suspicious of any feedback that wasn’t pure static.

Wonderfully, miraculously, I remembered this message. So much so that I began to mantra it from time to time. Where there is mud, there is water. Where there is mud, there is water. But what the hell did that even mean? Well, the mud part I understood: sticky, unpleasant, unclear and distracting… squelchy and gross. Honestly, it felt quite familiar. The Mud™ essentially felt like my place of residence, at this point. Things of late had felt “off” and disturbingly fuzzy in a way that was starting to feel permanent. I wondered if the clouds I was in could lead me to the type of sky that ascends you, not the type of sky that froze you slow and painful.

So yeah.. “muddy” made sense. In fact, things not making sense is the only sense that I seemed to be able to make at all. Another thought though, is that mud is also Earth. Clay and volcanic, soothing and slick: A balm that dries to paint and points to a history of my people, who lived under the moon millions of nights ago. Mud is unapologetically messy, with impressive traction that sticks and goops and houses and shelters and heals and… okay. I can see the dimensions of it, beyond the thought of rainy day gunk stuck in the grooves of my sneakers.

Where there is mud, there is water…. Well I suppose the absence of water in mud is just dirt, isn’t it? Dry, loose, atmospheric. It’s water that binds and emulsifies it. If I were thirsty in the desert, dirt would do nothing for me, except contribute to the desiccation of my throat. But, if stumbled upon mud, well where there is mud, there is water, isn’t there? Would this sign of wet earth not lead me to a water source beneath the surface?

Pause. I wonder then, if The Mud™ wasn’t a curse of the mind or an unliftable smoke. Maybe muddy days show me a type of slate that isn’t clean, and a mirror that is smudged beyond clarity - and maybe that’s apart of the journey, too? Maybe muddy days exist as a precursor to breakthroughs that are anything but sparkling, and thoughts that are unrefined and filthy. After all, the first draft isn’t always the final, and the very nature of highs are lows, are they not?

Now, I don’t necessarily subscribe to thoughts of tragedy as a gateway to Good Things™, but this also isn’t my first rodeo, and I know by now that the nature of cycles is not to predict when things will feel amazing and when things won’t… the cycles of life, could frankly give a damn about how we feel- they are happening regardless! Maybe experiencing the mud means that I am simply alive to experience anything at all. And when I am ears-deep in the sauce of life, leaving my safety raft of apathy can sometimes shore me to the grounding reality that I am still here.

Personally, I am working on that being enough. And if it’s not, then I try remember that mud… can also be played in.