“It was like stepping in mud,” I told her.
She echoed the words slowly, lifting her pen to her lips. She didn’t get it. Neither did I, to be honest. The analogy made sense, but I couldn’t make sense of why it made sense. I tried to explain anyway.
“Okay.” I took a long breath. “What do you do when you step in mud?”
“Mm. That’s what you want to do, what you would do if you could–but you never can, can you? Chances are you’re going somewhere when it happens. You’re heading to work or the store or wherever. Doesn’t matter. You just know that even if you had a hose right at your feet, you don’t have the time to wash it all away. You’ve got better things do to. So what do you do?“
Her eyes widened the tiniest bit as the cogs began to turn. I imagine I looked the same. “Wipe it on the grass–”
“–Or the sidewalk. Or a building. Any flat surface or edge–”
“–And no matter how hard you drag your feet, you can never get all of it off–”
“–So you settle. You wipe them until you say, ‘good enough,’ and keep moving. You’ve got better things to do.”
Delicately, she laid her pen to rest atop her pad and folded her hands over them, her otherwise steely gaze softening. Empathy. She understood, just as much as I did. After a few more beats, I continued. No stopping that train now.
“…And you see the mud you missed the next morning when you pull on your shoes. And the morning after that. And the week after that. Sooner or later, it dries out completely. The color fades. Mud goes back to dirt and dust, and after a while you stop noticing it. No, that’s not right. You notice it. It just doesn’t bother you anymore. It’s like it was always there.”
“It was like stepping in mud,” she said.
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