Two ponds

It's always on the perimeter of my consciousness. I can look at it directly if I want but usually, I choose not to.

The sensation that in some ways, life is passing me by. Missed plans, unavailable opportunities, DVDs returned unwatched.

We went fishing yesterday. A couple dozen feet from the pond we fished was another, indentical pond. The same type of fish and water weeds populated both ponds. The long skinny branches of weeping willows hung low over the still waters of each pond.

"I wonder if the fish in this pond realize that there is a world exactly like their own only thirty feet away?" I asked my husband.

"There's a little channel connecting the two down the road," he answered. "But I am sure there are fish that don't know that channel exists."

"What if that's Earth?" I said. "What if there's been another world exactly like ours right underneath our noses all along?"

But thinking some more, I realize there's another analogy here. I feel like a fish that knows about the other pond but can't access the channel that leads to it. I can try and try but I never quite get there. Fish returning from the other pond can offer me their interpretations if they wish, but it's never the same.

I am sometimes told that I'm lucky that I can't hear this or that. Well...not quite. If it's daytime (the hearing aid comes out at night!), then I probably hear the same annoyances that you do. However, when it comes to human voices, they are muddled 99.99% of the time. So perhaps in some cases, ignorance is bliss. But really, I'd rather be on the inside looking out, rather than the outside looking in.

I'd rather be a fish that can swim through the channel to the other pond.