With-A-Squish: Muddy

Following jo(e)’s suggestion, here’s what I wrote in five minutes about mud:

It’s raining. I go and ask Mom if we can play outside. She looks out the window for a few minutes, “There’s no thunder or lightening. Go ahead.” Gleefully my brother, sister and I clamber into our swimsuits and run out the door. Instantly our hair is plastered to our sunburned foreheads. The wind blows sheets of rain around the corner from 14th St. We squat in the rain gutter and race branches down the drain. After a couple minutes we dash across the black asphalt, still warm from the morning’s sun, to the playing field next to the high school. We never have to mow a lawn, yet half a block from our house, we have a whole city block of grass, bushes, sand, and mud. We run up the little hill onto the baseball diamond. In the mud at the edges we build dams to stall the rivulets carving miniature gorges in the dirt. Eventually, all our efforts fail and the water wins. We’re barefoot. Our summer calluses are thick enough to pull glass shards out of dead skin without any blood. Like Hobbits, we wander carefree. I love standing in the mud and flexing my toes. Squish. Squish. Squish. On the way back home we walk through the gutter water. Clean, happy and hungry we tumble into the house. Our footprints strewn wet across the living room carpet, we run back to the kitchen for fresh hot chocolate.