Be Like the Ducks

I began writing this blog post in March. When the ducks and geese were returning from their sojourn in the south. It's now September and these fowl with their grown young begin their return journey. Funny that I left this topic...not funny ha ha, but funny, ironic.

This is what I wrote back then:

Arguments and slights will occur. Resist the desire to pile them on top of your life story. Shake the hurts off and go in peace.

Observe the ducks. After a fight they turn and swim away, spread and shake their wings vigorously then float serenely on.

Be...like the ducks.

What is ironic is that I slighted someone shortly thereafter. It was completely unintentional. But there you have it. And I was not able to "be like the ducks."

My personality type is such that I am extremely hard on myself. I take responsibility and blame for everyone involved in a situation and bear all the guilt and shame. I do this as an unconscious form of penance; thinking that I will make "things right" by alone "suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (thanks high school English Lit...and Shakespeare). And, I take it all on myself because I think, unconsciously, that if I do not blame the other, then they will not blame me. Then things will be fixed.

My deepest desire is to fix things. But what if things can't be fixed?

What if the offending duck has to take flight, leaving the pond before it can "swim away" and "shake its wings?" I imagine this duck flies to another pond where it swims in circles, unable to "float serenely on." 

Because that's what I do. I swim in circles in the pond of my mind. Going over what I did wrong, how I could have done things or said things differently. Trying to create a new outcome out of thin air.

But the duck has got to shake! It's got to be able to move on and live.

It took me awhile to begin shaking my wings. I don't know if ducks remember past events. Maybe that's why a duck flaps its wings for no apparent reason. Whatever the case, I have to keep shaking my wings every time I look down at the water and glimpse a reflection of the past. My ability to float onward with serenity depends on being like the ducks.

Photo used with permission from: 

https://www.instagram.com/leavethetrain/