Monday 22 May 2017

The Ugly Duckling

Paddling on the water, I spotted this array of birds and asked myself: When is the last time you were willing to be mistaken for The Ugly Duckling?



What happened to the me who was comfortable planting herself in an environment full of seemingly different others? How did comfortable come to mean similar?

Why did I need these birds to remind me that it isn't a problem if I am mistaken for an ugly duckling, it is only a problem if I try to be so much like them that I forget I am a swan.


Tuesday 16 May 2017

Ripples




I love water, the way it moves, looks, feels, and adapts to whatever contains it...

As many hours as I have spent watching water move, I have spent watching its calm surface reflect everything hovering above it.

I enjoy watching the birds skim its surface, looking for fish or cooling their wings. I like looking through its freshness, curious to discover the sand, rocks and life which lay beneath.

What I like best of all though is the movement formed when elements, such as these two send ripples out farther than my eye can know.

For me, the ripples are reflective of life and how the smallest, least significant-seeming decisions echo forth. Ripples are soft and gentle. They are noticeable yet they neither detain nor disturb us. They may even enhance our enjoyment of the water.

Other ripples, we call waves. Waves are big and loud. They can be seen coming a mile away. The can make us leap with joy or make us panic. They can rock, tip, deafen and sometimes engulf us. Waves change us. They leave us wet, staggering, they can turn us wrong side up, can obscure the light. In the midst of a wave, we lose sight of everyone and everything around us, making it appear as though we are alone. Waves change our perception, our orientation and most often, they carry us back to a place we had already journeyed past, causing us to travel through territory we thought we had already conquered. Some of us seek them, their energy and excitement...

Whether ripples or waves, no creature can move through water without creating a disturbance... not the smallest bug and not the best swimmer.

The same is true of life. No matter what you do or how hard you try, you will not make it to the other side of it unnoticed. You do not have to be a wave-maker. Ripplers will be seen, will be loved, will make a difference to someone just as these two made a difference to me.



Thursday 11 May 2017

A Walk in the Woods

Though the soles of my shoes are soft, my footsteps land heavy in the silence, telling them I am coming to invade their solitude in search of my own.

Overhead, birds call out. I imagine them warning trees that they will be coming to briefly perch.

As if to create the illusion of sisterhood, the few dry leaves from last season which cling to the branches quiver in the same breath of cool wind which causes me to draw my jacket tighter.

High above an airplane flies; a metal container of people who like me choose movement over sitting still. Even as the emotional equilibrium I seek proves elusive, I earnestly pray they reach their physical destination.

Cloaked in the shelter of these mostly naked trees whose fallen leaves still warm the awakening earth, I relish the thought of being invisible to any eyes which might be straining through the small windows in search of familiar landmarks.

Nearby tree branches are studded with buds which stand promisingly perched, tips hopefully exposed to the sun waiting more patiently to discover their potential than ever I have.

These tightly bound leaves I envy. Patient or not, eager or not, in short order, they will likely be supplied with everything they need.

For me, however, time comes daily supplying me with dreams which may never be fulfilled, hopes which sometimes die before they settle in my heart and an assortment of experiences from which I bloom, then die, then bloom again.

From these I must divine who I am and for what purpose I have come.

The wind picks up. I walk on until my cold hands can no longer clutch the jacket closely enough. As I step from the woods, a familiar face allows its mask of concern to give way to a smile.  I cross half the ground between us before I realize I am no longer cold.