What The Goldeneyes Taught Me

They say done is better than perfect. “One foot after another”, and all that. I have many such phrases running through my head, written on knick-knacks and plastered on mugs whose purpose is to encourage O Sleeper to Awaken and Seize the Day.

The sleeper being me, the day being today.

My mouse moves slowly over my screen as if it, like me, has lost its sense of direction. “Make It Happen” reveals itself on the mousepad. I’m trying to, my thoughts mutter. I squint at an empty sea of white screen. Ok. Start with what I know.

The sage advice of the first book on writing I ever bought echoes from a deep place: Journal every morning, first thing. Get it all out. Like ink from a pen, you must empty the old stuff to get to the good stories pent up in the inkwell, awaiting a fresh dip into new thoughts.

My pen has sat with old ink inside of it for some time now, literally and figuratively. I begin.

It was very cold today. I took a walk and went to the harbor, which was new for me.

I stop here and let the memory come back to me. I can smell the brine, and close by, the gulls are calling. My breath releases; I didn’t even know I was holding it. How incredibly powerful a memory can be if you choose to revisit it. My shoulders relax. I start a new line:

I didn’t go down Market Street today. The wind was bitter and channeled hard through the buildings, so I chose instead to break the pattern and start my morning journey another way, through streets guarded by older buildings and unfamiliar graffiti. A perfume of age and smoke hung in the air. The unkempt sidewalk spoke to me in a language I didn’t recognize, bits of things crunched underfoot, and occasional cracks forced me to think about my footing. Every day, I followed my street to a quiet cafe on the corner, ordered a hazelnut latte, and watched the people outside the window. This was my routine.

I feel the ghost of a warm cup under my hand and hear kitchen chatter. Go deeper, don’t just describe the actions, I think to myself.

I like the separation. The world and its plague simmering outside the window, and I, wrapped in safety on the other side of the glass, observe detached. There is no cafe on this new corner here; in fact, I realize that I have traveled away from downtown towards the harbor, a place I haven’t been in a very long time. I kept walking.

The winds found me again as I arrived at the docks. I wrapped my scarf over my nose and tightened my coat, both of which were a shade of gentle green that mirrors the waters of the Foss Waterway before me. My thoughts were prickly; this is miserable, and I’m undercaffeinated. But my feet stayed put. The wind kept blowing.

Gliding around the hull of a white sailboat came a flock of ducks, five in all, small black-and-white bullets with flashing yellow eyes. Even ducks have their goth crowd, I noted internally. I pulled out my phone to see if Google could help me identify them. Until now, I haven’t felt the need to pull out my phone. Hmm. I matched the birds to what the internet calls a Barrow’s Goldeneye and feel the edges of my mouth turn up. Cool, learn something new every day. But that wasnt’t true, was it? How many days has it been since I challenged my mind with something new?

I felt energized and stretched as something unboxed from storage might feel, ready to unfold again. You know what? I should write today, I thought.

The text cursor blinks patiently. It feels like the metaphorical ink in the pen is getting low. Perhaps I should take a break… no. Keep digging, a small voice says. The key strokes come easier this time.

The Goldeneyes dip under the water like ribbons, rippling beneath the glassy surface of the bay, designed perfectly for the task set before them. What must it be like to be so unaware, so focused, simply existing? Surrounded by boaters, sea lions, stray fishing hooks, eagles, and nevermind that this waterway is one of the most polluted in the nation. And here they are in the face of it all, just dancing in the waters. My chest felt tight. Was I jealous?

Watching them releases something in me. I let out a breath and feel sharp things come out with it. I moved here to be a duck, I think gently to myself, all the way across the country. I left so much of my life behind chasing what these little birds always had without knowing. Can ducks feel grief? Would they dive beneath the waves seeking safety, and hide for so long that they drown? Or is that just me? Eventually, I have to surface as they do.

I continue to watch them, hoping to learn their movements. Learn their obliviousness. Maybe even learn their untethered joy, if ducks can feel such things. Maybe we can feel grief and joy together again tomorrow morning.

I stop writing. I stare at the page. It’s no longer blank, though not by much, and it’s not great.

“I love it,” I say out loud. This surprises me, just as it surprised me that an unfamiliar walk could wake me up in a way the cafe coffee hasn’t been able to in months.

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."

- Margaret Atwood

This is a true story written on the day of submission, crafted in gratitude towards Reedsy and their team. Thank you for helping me break my routine. I am surprised to say I am not sorry for how imperfect it is; I love that it simply exists outside of me, and anyway isn’t that the humble beginning of any good story?

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