The Odd Duck

I haven’t been able to run for the last couple of weeks. It started with a bone that went out in my foot (that my chiropractor fixed brilliantly in one go) but continued because I’ve been having these terrible leg and foot cramps and my muscles have been hurting. It’s been frustrating, to say the least. Some days I’ve wanted to bang my fists against a wall and cry. Other days, I have. Last night, I couldn’t sleep because they were hurting. After a restless night, I woke up this morning in a total fog.

I have a mountain of work on my desk but sitting and trying to work was proving to be beyond ineffectual so I decided to just put on my headphones and go for a nice long walk. Fresh air, sunshine, a tiny droplet of exercise to make me thirsty for the cardio that I couldn’t have. And right at the beginning of the walk my foot started to seize up a little bit. I stopped and asked myself what is going on with me. I’ve been asking myself that a lot this last week, but I feel like the answer finally came down, a beam of light into my brain, and a whole bunch of things clicked.

Muscles. Tension. Tensing. Squeezing. Contracting. Holding far too tightly, trying to force. Trying to make something happen or be a certain way.

Just the other day, I was telling my best friend that I realized something about myself. Everyone talks about square pegs and round holes, but I’m not even a damn peg. I’m like a little blob of goo, that can sometimes fit into a round hole, and other times fit into a square hole, and even occasionally look like a square trying to fit into a round hole, but I never really belong anywhere. I’m holding myself in this shape so that I can be a part of the board that everyone else is on. And when I finally just stop and let myself be me, I ooze gelatinously out into the world, a ill-formed oddity, at a total loss as to who I am or where I belong.

I’ve been doing this a lot more these last few weeks, even in my personal life. I’ve been trying to inwardly and outwardly conform myself to who I think I’m supposed to be, to who others expect me to be. I’ve been trying so hard to do things that other people want me to do, believing that I need to do them. But it isn’t working. Almost no good has come of it. I’m tensing up my entire self, contorting myself into weird shapes… it’s no wonder my muscles are starting to cramp.

I’m resisting the aspects of myself that I don’t like again, and I know I’m doing it. The lack of exercise has removed the band-aid that I was using to grind through it and now I’m forced to feel all of the things I’ve been resisting. Life has a funny way of doing that. Pain is an invitation for us to look at ourselves, and be honest. I don’t have the solution, but I know it starts with consciously letting go in the moment, as much as I can. And by letting go, I mean allowing myself to be who I really am, allowing myself to feel all of the negative emotions that I don’t like and try to run from. Relaxing. I don’t need to cling so tightly to the bank of the river out of fear. I need to relax and let it carry me away to where it wants to go. I don’t get to shape the river. I get to ride in it.

I slowed down, breathed more deeply, and took my time on my walk. I consciously relaxed. And for the rest of the walk my muscles were fine. It felt so good to just be outside and be moving.

There is a lake nearby that Brandon and I occasionally go walking around. During the day it is infested with ducks. But at night, all of the gaggles are gone. Where do they go? I don’t know. That sounds like the start of a kids book. “Where do the ducks go? I don’t know.” They go… wherever ducks go. But every so often there is this one odd duck — this weird little loner that is always the only featherball to be found by the water, quacking around the grass at night by himself. He’s always waddling through a shower of sprinklers, slurping up juicy worms to his heart’s content.

The first time we saw him I laughed and said to Brandon, “that duck is my spirit animal.” I’m the one weirdo, happy with my late night worms while the rest of the ducks are sleeping. Every time I see him, he makes me smile, and reminds me that sometimes, it’s just better to be yourself. Even if you’re the odd duck.

A Dream of Flying

Flying is a distant, forgotten memory, lost in haze and obscured by an oppressing unknown. Somewhere, deep inside, I know it should be me. I should be up in the sky with that hawk, circling overhead.

I can practically feel the wind whistling sweetly through my feathers as I ride that warm thermal up, up, up past the clouds that float like cream. I can count out the rows of whatever those clay colored shingle things are called that they line up all along the roofs here in California. I can see out across the town and watch the cars inch like ants; slow and purposeless from my perspective, but in their two-dimensional world they are caught up in a whirl of determined, self-important intent. Carrying crumbs along blindly to some cause or another. I can breathe in that humid, salty air as I watch all of them from my panoramic place in the sky.

Being that hawk is second nature to me, I know it. I can feel it burning in the bowels of my heart. More than a desire, it’s a deep, guttural need. So why I am I tied here, this unwitting balloon that aches to soar, clinging to the ground by cord?

I gave up on flying long ago. I’m not quite sure at what age I determined that I couldn’t fly; probably six or seven, not long after I started devouring books like a ravenous monster. Something about the fact that everything was possible in those stories made me look around and wonder why they weren’t possible here. But since evidence (and everyone else) insisted the contrary, I eventually realized that they were right and I succumbed to the limitations of reality. I stopped listening to that part of me that whispered in my ear late at night: “you were made to fly!!!”

Still… deep down, a tiny little part of me clung to hope. On every birthday, I would spend my candles on the request to fly. On every star that I hung a wish, I would beg for it to pull me up into the clouds. In every fountain that I tossed a penny, I would squeeze my eyes shut tight and my heart would flutter as I thought: it might come true. It might. But as the years passed, candles stacked up, caked with dried, cracked frosting, and I realized that my wish would never come true. I was being naïve.

I gave up on stars and fountains and birthday candles.

I resigned to my fate on the ground, and adopted a love for walking instead. At least I was going somewhere; at least the scenery was changing. I bought a convertible so that I could always have the wind in my face. I accepted that my dream was impossibility, although now I realize that even in the midst of disappointment, a tiny voice inside of me insisted quietly: improbability.

Truth be told, I think I could never quite let go of that yearning for the wind in my face and the world waving to me from all four horizons. I definitely tried. I stuck it on a back shelf in my mind, let it bathe in dust. Every time I would go in there looking for something I would notice it and jump, startled into yearning all over again. Quick, shut the door, latch it closed before the tears can fall, breathe a sigh of relief and try not to go back there again if you can help it. There’s nothing more painful than a dream you can never touch and hold.

And here I am, staring up at this hawk, watching it take for granted the world in which it lives every day – the world for which I reach, and return each morning with empty palms. I try to slip between the feathers and settle inside of his skin, gaze out at the world through those shrewd yellow eyes. For a moment, we are one, and I am looking down on my head, a brown speck in a fenced in square of dusty land, far below.

Then it is over, and I am me again, looking up into nothing but blue. Maybe if I imagine hard enough, gravity will shift upside-down, and I will fall into the sky. I hope, halfheartedly, for a second.

No luck. Hope drifts away on a breeze, carried off to someone else for whom it might serve better.

Imagination

I dug this dusty old poem of mine out of my writing folder not to long ago and it made me smile. It’s just me trying to figure out me. It’s imperfect, but I kind of like it that way.

For so long, I’ve been reaching. Stretching, straining, groping — Fumbling in the dark; Fingers closing on nothing.

Cursing.

For so long, I’ve been sculpting. Stretching, flexing, molding — Carefully creating forms; That in the end, resemble nothing.

My imagination has long been this curse, Tormenting me with things that cannot be. It is not fair, that I cannot make my life Resemble all of the wonderful ideas That I have for it.

I am a parent, with years of experience Convinced that I know what is best; I know how things should be. And my life is my child, Forever uncooperative.

Damn you, imagination! If you did not torment me with your Endless possibility, I would never know What I am missing out on.

But today, I was lying on the ground, Envisioning all of things that Would probably never come, Lost in a dream of maybe When it hit me.

The gift of my imagination Is that so much of it Never will be.

This long lamented curse Is actually a boon; Only I did not have eyes to see. While my experiences may forever thwart me, My imagination will be eternally loyal.

Whenever things do not go According to carefully laid out plans, When life does not live up To my mightily important ideals — All I need do is close my eyes, And everything I have ever wanted Arrives.

Infinite possibility.

Like awakening In the middle of a dream To discover you are still dreaming, The lucid can choose a new path. I can close my eyes, and choose Another outcome. Or ten outcomes, Each better than the last.

In my mind, I can have A perfect experience. And even if I open my eyes, And the world around me Looks nothing like I want it to, I can close them again whenever I want.

I do not ever need to force an experience of Anything. I don’t need to cling desperately to desires Or hopes, or wishes That only fill me with sadness and frustration.

The stars in the sky can go on extended vacation — I do not need them to hang around While I ask them to fulfill my requests.

I can simply dream And find deliciousness in dreaming.

For in dreams, you can do anything. There are no rules, no boundaries — Not a single limitation to speak of. And consequences? Forget about it. Every imperfection is smoothed over, Every frustration dissolved. Every whim can be lived out, Sampled and tasted and savored.

And when you open your eyes, You no longer resent the imperfections, Or the frustrations. You appreciate them, Because they give you more reason To dream.