The Pool Situation

Blog 21 - June 2025 / Summer Threshold

I’m working in a new tone right now - so this one lands a little different.
Everyday life. Things that happen without reflection or insights. It’s dry, observational, and a little absurd. On purpose. ;)

If you’ve been reading all along: thank you. You’ll feel the difference.

And if this is your first time here - this is just one of the ways the voice moves.

I haven’t opened the pool.
It’s June. It’s still cold and unusually rainy. And the pool is leaking.

I can’t fix the leak. I need to call someone. But to call someone, the pool has to be open. And to open it, it has to be warm. It hasn’t been.

Instead, I’ve been in a cycle. A strange, pointless one. The winter cover sits over the pool, collecting water. But the cover is permeable, so as I pump off the water on top, I’m also losing water from inside the pool. Drain the cover. Refill the pool. The pump sits inside a milk crate so the leaves don’t clog it. The leaves still try. It smells like rotting leaves and old algae. It’s a whole setup for something that isn’t even open.

Sometimes the pump hums too loud and I wonder if it’s burning out. Sometimes I forget it’s on, and it runs dry, coughing. It never quite breaks. Just complains.

The last time I checked the water line, I heard Cousin Eddie in my head: “This one here’s leakin’.” I didn’t laugh. I just looked at the line going down and thought - shit, you’re right.

Earlier this week, while the pump was running, I remembered I needed dirt. There’s a pile at the back of the yard I’ve been using to fill pots. What I didn’t realize was that the pool water was draining right past the dirt pile, turning it into mud.

I didn’t want to wait. So I went anyway. One foot stuck. The other slid. The top layer gave, the bottom sucked it in. I filled the pot with what I could grab. Mostly mud. A few worms. One rock.

By the time I got back to the patio, the pot weighed too much. I couldn’t lift it out of the wheelbarrow. Mud up to my shoelaces. Worms trying to escape. All of this….for marigolds that popped up out of nowhere.

Volunteers. I didn’t plant them. I just didn’t want to throw them away.

The marigolds were the least of it.

Sunflowers started coming up inside the flower pots. Not near them - inside them. I got more pots out just to give them somewhere to go.

Black-eyed Susans, which I grow in the front, suddenly showed up in the back. In flower pots. Along the fence. At the edge of the compost pile. I rescued those too.

Lemon balm invited itself in. Ferns overtook the north side of the yard. I don’t remember them multiplying this fast.

It’s like the garden decided summer was happening - with or without me.

So I’ve been eating soup. Rich broth. Lots of vegetables. It’s June.

Last year, I lived on cold chickpea salad. The windows were open all day. The AC was broken. Everything felt like collapse - but at least it was summer.

This year, the windows stay closed. It’s been cold. Then smoky. Then the neighbors started with the fire pits.

I’m sipping hot broth. Not detoxing. Just not doing that anymore. Same vigilance. Different rules.

Sunday afternoon I cleaned the hummingbird feeder. Scrubbed it. Measured the sugar water exactly. Got soaked rinsing it - the holes spray sideways. Hung it back up.

Felt satisfied for about five seconds.

Haven’t seen a hummingbird since.

Hummingbirds are supposed to mean joy.

I’m still waiting.

Two weeks ago, I repainted the pool deck. It’s redwood. In 2020 when I had it built, lumber was hard to get. I ended up with whatever they had left. That first year, the boards were pale and raw. Second year I stained it. Supposedly a lifetime stain.

It peels off every winter. Every spring I sand it down and do it again. The same boards. It looks good for one day. Then the birds shit on it.

The brush I use is too stiff, but it’s the only one that doesn’t fall apart halfway through. I keep thinking I’ll buy a better one, but by then the weather turns.

Then the outside faucet started leaking. Not a flood. Just enough to be annoying. I took a photo and voice-noted the problem to ChatGPT to see if it could walk me through a fix. While it was responding, I caught myself thinking: water is emotion. Where are my emotions leaking?

And then I stopped.

No. Not this time.

From the back of my brain: Cousin Eddie again.

“This one here’s leakin’.”

Yeah, Cousin Eddie. I know. I know.

Now the weather is shifting again. From rain to upper 90s in a matter of days. Which means I’ll have to open the pool soon - leak or no leak. The repair guy said he can't come if the water's too cold. So now it'll be hot outside. The water still cold. And still not fixed. I’ll be filling something I can’t use.

A few summers ago, I had a skimmer crack from frozen water. Some well-meaning person told me to plug the return hoses for winter so I wouldn't have to drain the pool so low. That worked. Except the water sat in the skimmer and froze solid. Spring came. I started it up. Water poured out like I’d punched a hole in the wall.

I called the pool company. They came out, looked grim, gave me a $1200 estimate, and loaded up their tools. As I stood there absorbing the cost of frozen water, one of the guys looped back and flagged me down.

"Hey," he said. "My mom’s did the same thing. You just need a big O-ring to tighten that housing. It'll stop the leak."

I drove to Lowe's, bought an O-ring, came home, installed it, and the leak stopped. That was the fix.

My neighbor heard the whole story later and nodded like it was obvious.

He’s that guy. Mr. Helpful. Retired maintenance. Makes silver jewelry in his garage. Has a full stone-cutting setup. He’s the one you call when something tiny breaks and shouldn’t matter but does. He just tied my hydrangeas up with spokes from a broken umbrella.

"Just Flex Seal it," he said about the pool.

And honestly, maybe I will.

I haven’t yet. But I drained the cover again. Fed the marigolds. Closed the windows. And waited for summer to decide what it’s doing.

Love,
Sherry

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About the Author

Sherry writes from the quiet space that opened up when she stopped trying to fix herself. After decades inside spiritual and healing communities, she stepped away from the endless optimization project and discovered what life feels like when you're not constantly working on it.

She lives in Pennsylvania. She’s been here a long time.

In her blog, It Exists (For Now), she writes about things that happen - the absurdities of life. There’s nothing profound here. Just the way stuff unfolds when you stop trying to make it mean something.

She makes zines. Grows flowers that plant themselves.
Does seasonal stuff. Quiet work with its own rhythm.

This isn’t the writing she used to do.
But it’s the voice that showed up when everything else went quiet.