Talking dirty...

Mud…



noun

1.
wet, soft earth or earthy matter, as on the ground after rain, at the bottom of a pond, or along the banks of a river; mire.




2.
Informal. scandalous or malicious assertions or information: The opposition threw a lot of mud at our candidate.




3.
Slang. brewed coffee, esp. when strong or bitter.




4.
a mixture of chemicals and other substances pumped into a drilling rig chiefly as a lubricant for the bit and shaft.




Four separate paths. Each are connected to a purpose and yet its reason of being seems surface level during a time when so many have pulled their emotions underground.



Mud…



In Montana it cakes to you like sugar cookies and a six pack of Krispy Kreme donuts. Your feet instantly become weighted by a substance that requires half a tree to free the worn out knees forced to carry it.



In the Carolina’s mud is different…almost dangerous. The well tailored orange mess known to many as Georgia Clay stains everything! One wrong slip or flip from a bad pair of tennis shoes and your clothes are destroyed. Mom’s cringe at the idea of kids inviting mud to their kitchen and living room floor and that nice clean finish you have for a paint job on the car…give it one or two good storms and you’ll scream foul!



Mud…



My roses need it in order to survive. As do the trees that protect the owls and deer inside a forest I’ve been protecting nearly seventeen years. Earth worms require mud to keep their front door of their natural porch wide open and free. Robins locate tiny bugs to chew on like popcorn. Snakes snuggle up to it because it’s moist for their ever changing thin skin providing just the right temperature. Giant skyscraping leather-like cattails preparing for the soon to be arriving fall bath in mud every second of every day.



How could something so creepy ugly invite so much beauty?

It seems humans are the only mammal, animal, breathing creation that wants nothing to do with the combination of dirt meeting water…unless you’re three to six years old and discover mud resembles dough which makes incredible imaginative layered cakes of many.



Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn believes it’s because humans can’t stand to live in their own mud. The ingredients of what we shove into our present and past generates generously proportioned storms forcing the self created land field assumed hidden to rise. One oopsy teeny weenie step into your closet and like Georgia Clay paint covering your ears, eyes, nose and face no longer looks the same.



Taking the time to stand back and view how Mother Nature reacts to mud is an eye opening experience. A troubled rose replanted in the midst of a hot summer can’t locate the love to push aside the mud weighing down its roots. So it learns to borrow from it the nutrients that will keep it alive and moving forward.



My beautifully white Maltese love to wallow in mud. Harold wastes no time to nose dive into a fresh puddle doing everything within his power to wipe that irritating dirty substance all over his body. Look at how elephants react to mud! They shoot that junk high into the air hoping it’ll cover everything including their tail.



A human spots mud on the carpet of their car and it’s a date with instant anger. How dare we allow something so natural to enter our world! Makes you wonder how well they keep the walls of their inside shell? Too clean means nothing. Learning to accept the chapters we were forced to write helps feed the pages waiting to hear from the fingers that’ll soon bring thought to a new life.



I still feel the pain of my brother running away from home the first time. Abandonment rips from the sky baseball size hail and combines it with loose soil on a mountain side. Within an hour the perfect substance created suffers tremendous damage from a landslide. Poets and songwriters locate avenues of peace by sifting through every piece. A painter’s brush stroke is never an empty expression. Most bankers got into finances because the deeper pool reveals a need to help others make their personal lives better because it was something they didn't have as a child.



No human walks through life without mud on their feet.



Queens Lace was once considered a weed—a single bouquet of white dots meeting an unforgettable shade of light green as seen on long slender stems in the way of shouting, “Look at me! Look at me!” Tossed out of a society of more beautifully decorated flowers and wanna-be’s…Queens Lace reached deep into its collection of fallen dreams combined with tears of fear and located a place in history and it couldn’t have become a reality without sprouting from mud first.



Mom asked last night, “Do you miss not being on the radio everyday? I know it was your dream. You spent so many hours in your bedroom practicing.”



Waste deep in mud and broken promises my reply without thought was to the point and taken very seriously, “The more radio says no, the easier it becomes for me to finish my books. I will always be a writer first. If my current three works aren’t published I’ll write a fourth.”



More quickly than I…she wasted no time, “What about your art in galleries and the music you love to sing?”



“Aren’t you glad you gave birth to a son with multiple personalities?”



arroecollins@clearchannel.com