Once Upon a Lily Pad

We had a real humdinger of a rain overnight, and as luck would have it, I followed clearing skies into town on my drive to work. I had enough time for a quick stop at the Arboretum, where every lily pad was drenched with water droplets from the rain.

I liked how round and perfect the droplets seemed. They caught some of the blue of the clearing sky and reflected it back. Every droplet cast a teeny-tiny shadow, and the morning light was shining through each little droplet to set the heart of its own shadow on fire. Each droplet, a tiny world; a mirror; a window. Worlds within worlds within worlds . . .

The soundtrack: The Go-Go's with a lovely and haunting tune from their second (1982) album, Vacation (which is every bit as good as their 1981 debut, Beauty and the Beat), Worlds Away.