Yes, you are in mud. No, you are not stuck.

            I fell in the mud the other day. Or rather, I sunk into and toppled over in the mud.

            Perhaps I could have taken another path.

            Notice I said could have and not should have.

            The rains had been torrential, the river swollen well beyond her bed, and the logs that had been laid across a wide ditch for easier crossing were tossed around like matchsticks.

            I wanted to cross that ditch to get to a favorite spot for sitting and jumping wasn’t going to work with the slippery, sludgy sides of the slope, so I picked up the end of a log and pushed it toward the other side. Then one foot slid down toward the water, and then my other foot headed in that direction too. Before I knew it, I was slip-sliding into the muddy water (silt, my husband tells me, was in the bottom).

            Arms flailing, my body turned this way and that way.

            I reached for the side of the hill, my hands scraping into wet earth, getting heavy with black goop, useless in my attempt to steady myself or escape.

            One foot sunk deeper into the quicksand-like sludge and I thought I’m stuck.

            Or, rather, I’m going to get stuck.

            One muddy hand reached into a pocket to feel for my phone, which was there but damp, grainy with dirt, and safe for the moment. I was fully aware that it might drop into the water at any time, and tucked it deeper into my pocket.

            The woods around me were silent.

            The river roared to my left, browner than usual, and moving along not noticing a thing.

            I paused. Sank deeper into the watery silt. My legs were wet and cold. My feet like lead.

            I’m stuck.

            I thought it again, and slowed my body down to let the sensation wash over me.

            Then I tugged at my right foot and when it didn’t budge I thought I might have to lose my shoe.

            Who cares if you lose a shoe, I told myself.

            Walking out of the forest with no shoes and covered in mud flashed in my mind. I didn’t see anyone on my way in, so maybe there wouldn’t be anyone on my way out.

            Who cares if people see you without shoes and covered in mud, I asked myself.

            And that, my friends, actually worked. Who did care if people saw me covered in mud and shoeless walking out of the forest?

            Maybe they would ask me what happened and I could warn them against taking the path I took.

            Maybe they would ask if I needed help and that would make me feel cared for.

            Maybe they would turn away, embarrassed to watch me, and I would become a story in their mind.

            Maybe they would tell a story about me to people they loved that night over dinner, the mysterious woman emerging from the riverbank with no shoes, covered in mud. “She was smiling,” they might say, “it was the strangest thing. It’s as if she was of the forest.”

            I am of the forest, and so are you.

            I am of the mud, and so are you.

            I am of the rushing river, ebbing and flowing with rains and droughts.

            So are you.

            We are mud, my friend. We are mud.

            And sometimes we are in mud.

            I tugged on my right foot a little more gently, using tiny movements to see what was going to happen with each effort until a slurpy feeling gave me confidence that I wasn’t stuck.

            I’m not stuck.

            I accepted the fact that I was near-shin-deep in sludgy, thick, heavy wetness, and it was likely to get a lot messier before I was in the clear, but I knew I wasn’t stuck.

            My shoes came to the surface with my feet, now a dark brown muck covering them, and I stepped back to turn around and head out of the woods when I realized something for the first time.

            The log.

One side of the log had made it across the ditch.

            So I smiled, chuckled, and stepped on it (with great caution), and hopped to the other side.

            The water and mud made my shoes and pants heavy, but also cool in the most refreshing way. I walked along the path ducking under low branches and stepping over debris left from the high waters that were already subsiding. And when it was time to leave the forest I turned around to retrace my path, stepping carefully on the now-bridge-log, and walking with my head held high, smile on my face, as I passed a couple park visitors near the parking lot.

            Lotus flower seeds germinate deep in mud, underwater, and they emerge on top of the water in the most brilliant, strong, inspiring form. Thich Nhat Hanh, a famous Buddhist monk teacher and writer said and wrote many times, “no mud, no lotus”. In other words, the beauty and strength of the lotus is only possible because of the mud.

            I wasn’t the picture of a purple lotus walking out of that forest, but I was something else. Changed, at least for the moment, a memory, and a story. A lesson.

A reminder.

Yes, you are in mud. But you are not stuck.