The Ball

 The Ball

Across the river and upstream from my place are a series of dams and makeshift rock pools; homemade walls devised by someone to hold some of the precious water that comes from time to time. These days, my little river is dry more than full. Even long ago, I imagine ranchers  just wanted  to stay the effects of our Texas summer heat a little longer. 

In our own early years here, the kids and I were always thrilled by big rains; by the occasional floods that filled the swimming holes and brought back the sounds of rapids and spillways. No matter how long the river lasted, it was a blessing, and our bank would be once again littered with tubes and floats and muddy shoes. Once dry again, as it mostly is these days, the riverbed becomes a lovely place to walk with my dogs.

Upstream, the dam and crude rock wall holds water much longer, and it has become my custom to go there on our walks. I cross the dry bed south, climb the bamboo-lined berm into the vast pasture across the way. I then turn west, walking upstream, around a bend  and back down to the river. I go by way of a badly cut gash in the caliche bank, probably made by some fool to try to divert a natural draw.

It does not work.... it is out of place here, and looks like someone used a dirty pink eraser to smudge the landscape, disrupting the natural runoff into a muddy mess. Best laid plans. Walking down, I smile to see one of my favorite spots on earth.

The main dam is well-made and concrete; with a thoughtful spillway that is low, anchored securely into the bedrock. That's why it has never washed away because debris flows over it easily. Low, streamlined and non-descript. Just below that is a sturdy rock wall that cups the captured water into a pool, and because it was so smartly placed, water stays here much longer than anywhere else along the river. It is a sweet spot for Phoebe and Henry to take a dip and get a drink along our walk.

In early October of this year, some unexpected rains came; a 5 inch torrent  that flooded the area and filled our river briefly. 

A couple of weeks later I was walking to the dam to survey it's state, thinking of the nature of my life, and found, with a real shock, that a blue soccer ball had gotten herself stuck in the current at the foot of the spillway. Spinning furiously, she was kept in the grip of that one spot....

Pushed down by the spillway flow

Pushed up by the undertow

And pushed in on both sides by the curving flow of water. 

A perfect vortex.

We watched, my dogs and I.........transfixed and perplexed by the symmetry and illogical perfection of the moment. Like as not, that ball had been there at least 2 weeks, since the flooding had subsided. 

She bobbed this way and that way a bit, teasing an escape, but never did. This was a real and true case of nature having it's say about things.

She was not going anywhere. 

I don't know how long we stood there watching, but I do remember the sound of sycamore leaves applauding and the coming and going of cloud shadows.  I remember the tug of thinking that I had seen something important, I might never see again. I felt sad and amused and exhilarated.

A couple of weeks later we returned and  son of a bitch if she wasn't still there, spinning haplessly in the same spot!

So remarkable and weird to think how long this ball had been kept "just so" by forces and energies that ping in my mind somewhere between randomness and serendipity....Science slapped firmly in the face by chaos. 

 Ah, my friend Chaos Theory..... 

I've always been fascinated by it. Cybernetics and String Theory...Quantum and such all rely on some degree of chaos an  organizing principle. I lean toward it as one of the best tools of a blithe and curious Creator. Not "instead of"  but rather skillfully and playfully used by my Source.

    The math beneath the magic.

    One of Source's many delightful tools of expansion. Less a God of puppets and strings and laser-beam "zapping" things into being; More a soft, sarcastic nudge..... swirling a stick in the primordial mud of everyone's lives just to see what might pop up.

    

     And as Matthew Arnold said in "The Buried Life":

        But often, in the world's most crowded streets;

        But often, in the din of strife,

        There arises an unspeakable desire

        After the knowledge of our buried life,

        A thirst to spend our fire and restless force,

        In tracking out our true and original course;

        A longing to inquire into the mystery of this heart which beats

        So wild, so deep in us....to know whence our lives come

        And where they go."

 It is a full month later now,  and she still spins at the base of the spillway-her blue geometric designs slowly being scraped raw;  the beige leather of her exposed. I go to visit her now a few times a week to see if she has yet broken free of what holds her..... 

And to to receive the refreshing and shocking reminder...........

We are all in the grip of something.

And one day soon, I'll put on my hiking shoes and walk down to my river;  I'll climb the bank where young bamboo is optimistically beginning to fill in;  Across the pasture thigh-deep in thistles and switch grass;  Turn north and wind back down to the dam;  Look over the edge of the berm......

 And she will be gone.

 I will be sad.

 But this too will be right and proper......

    

Things get stuck

Things get unstuck

There is a beginning,

There is a necessary end;

Life changes again.

I am the Ball.