Sometimes, when I walk, my heart whispers prayers for which my mind cannot find words. Today, most of them sought response to bitingly familiar words… “Fool, fool. You’re not enough.”
For an hour or so, I sit still on a bench beside the pond. I want to write, to use my pen to throw up my hands, shake my fist at the universe and its maddening predictability. Then I still and notice perhaps a hundred ducks swimming, one tiny body far behind the others, moving not with the placid floating wings and elegant face of the adults, but with the halting, imprecise movements of a toddler. It strains, each stroke of its new legs perceptible by the straining bob of its fuzzy head. It falls further behind, then skitters out of the water, flapping and running across its surface to join the older tribe.
I laugh.
Still quieter I become, drawing up my leg, listening to my breath. The tiny duck wobbles in the water, like a fat-legged child in a diaper, scooting too far to the left, then the right, then correcting its course. Stopping. Starting again. Irregular, urgent movements in a body that doesn’t yet know its own flow.
Dogs run past me, one that has the equivalent of a spiky crew cut holds its eyes wide open, tongue lolling with its head to the left, and smiles… really smiles at me.
A woman tosses bread to the ducks. Pigeons, sparrows take notice. I watch the purple glint off the necks of the pigeons, their territorial walk as they muscle the sparrows away. One bobs closer to me, so close that I can see the feathers on its feet. It takes no notice of me.
The sparrows bide their time, craning fragile necks, now inching closer, now backing away from the blustering larger birds. One sparrow is rather dopey, its beak hanging open during every hop, scratching its head against branches.
A chipmunk rustles among the sparrows behind my bench. I want to touch the sheen that glows along its hind legs. I imagine the softness, much like the downy lines of fur along ears and neck of the cat that curls in my lap when I sit down long enough.
I move a bit to see better. The chipmunk starts, runs away.
So much to see! So many languages being spoken here, almost silent but not quite, to me indecipherable. One sparrow shakes her wings, hops, directs her neighbors. I watch one reach into another’s beak to share a bite and wonder, as a pre-teen trying to understand the mechanics of French kissing, how do they know which way to turn so they don’t knock heads?
Each bird so singular! But awkward grace of the new ones, the bullying of the large, all this is so universal!
On my walk back from the pond, I reach out to touch the objects I pass – closing my eyes as the low stone wall transfers its sun-bathed warmth into my fingertips and palms; I close my eyes and try to isolate the smell of car exhaust and new tar from subtle green; I close my eyes and listened to the men chuckling deep and barrel-throated from the T station, the children giggling and then whining as the sprinkler drops dry cold across their bare chests.
I reach the end of the wall, look down at the pink of my fingers, then press their rough heat against my face. I study and caress the irregular bark of the birches I pass, smiling wide and yes, foolish, unconcerned that all the cars can see.
So many senses. The hair on my shins stands up as I catalogue them back to myself; I shiver and thrill. Like the sparrows, the ducks, like the birch bark and the squealing children, I too have a place here. I need never fear being insufficient, being a fool. To focus there is to miss a much more eloquent story.
I feel fairly certain that all manner of thing shall be well.
Sometimes, when I walk, my heart whispers prayers for which my mind cannot find words. And sometimes these prayers are answered.
