What the Duck - Day 100!
Day 100!
Within these past 100 days, I returned to work full-time, the seasons changed, and my project is featured in a local magazine. I am still determining when it became apparent that What the Duck evolved to pull my other unfinished pieces together and fill in the blanks to my next book, The Art of Leaving. I guess it doesn't matter when it became apparent; it was a nice surprise. Did this project fix all the parts of me that are hurting? Not entirely, but it helped give my mind something else to focus on. It's way more than that, tho - I love making space in my day to make a piece of art.
Making art and sketching in nature are fun. THAT answers a question hanging over me for the past year–what am I doing to have fun?
When I noticed how the What the Duck project weaved into the therapy I have been doing and how it was helping me heal, my lovely therapist coaxed the narrative out of me. This is a story about a girl who is finding her way home. Home is the place that is always within me, but I seem to wander away from the main trail when I am scared or hurt.
When Lily graduated from college, I thought this would be my time to focus on myself and what I wanted the next part of my life to look like. I didn't expect the quality of my good health to come to the foreground so quickly. It reminded me that someone much wiser than myself told me that THESE years when my able body is more inclined to get out of bed without too much coaxing and crackling, are my golden years.
I tell myself and anyone who asks that I create art and write books because I am a woman who needs to make things. That's true, but it only scratches the surface. I do these projects and create, write, and design books because it's fun, and I love it!
What’s next? I'll continue to learn from nature. There is a rhythm, natural cycle, and balance that will continue no matter what we humans do to pollute it—my time with the ducks taught me a lot. I witnessed the mating frenzy at the duck pond. That fast and furious courtship. The babies that hatch and become an integral part of keeping their species alive. Do they ever lose their way and wonder who they are, their purpose, and whether God is with them through the storms? Are they thinking about anything profound when I watch them quietly sitting by the pond's edge, seemingly emotionless? Or is he watching the other duck across from him, balance on one leg, jealous of his ability to stare stoically at the horizon? What do they think of me showing up with a bag of corn, tempting them to eat from my hand as if they need my help to forage for food? They seem to naturally know what to do and what they need to keep being what God intended them to be: ducks. Did I take something so simple: love, good health, fresh air, clean water, fresh food, and overcomplicate it?
I want to think that the ducks splash around and swim with those silly orange feet they were born with because it's functional AND fun. A pen and a blank piece of paper are my fun. It's my orange feet. It’s the simple, silly thing I do that brings me back to who I was 50 years ago, Tina Miller.
I'd like to still be alive in 30 years to watch my daughter grow and live my life to be old with someone I love, but I know none of us are guaranteed that time. So, each day, I'll keep living as simple as possible. I will choose my words and actions thoughtfully, love deeply, give my energy to things and people that matter, and keep scratching at the layers of my life to find my way home again.
