December 31st, I felt very overwhelmed and somehow both overmotivated and undermotivated. Like, the cultural aura of “planning” and “reflecting” and “organizing” and cleaning all felt like I needed to figure out the next year. Like, I needed to figure out the next year, the next month with my English student ( which was a loose outline before, not an actual plan).
I also felt like I should be organizing my office, clean the house, and also just relax because it was the first day in a while that I hadn’t been at work or camping (which is fun, but also its own kind of work). I wanted to do All The Things and also just eat crackers and read a book on the couch.
So, it makes sense that in my rush to “figure out my life” and “plan for the future” my true self showed up at the grocery store.
The waning days of December and early January are generally full of talk of resolutions and plans and hope and this cultural “aura” of a desire to change and be a better version of the person we all were the year before – or at least a better version of the person we were before visiting family or working with the public during the holidays or taking off that time we were about to lose without a real plan other than watch all 24 hours of A Christmas Story. In other words, it’s that time of year when we tend to start thinking too much about the choices we’ve made and wondering if we should start making different choices whether it’s something “work out more,” “drink less,” “write that book,” or “move to an island inhabited solely by venomous snakes because that seems saner than seeing what happens in the States after January 20th.
I needed pine shavings for the ducks and also needed some more frozen corn for the same pampered ducks, so I tabled my ennui or at least threw it in my purse and headed off to the grocery store and feed shop. I picked up the pine shavings and loaded them into the husband’s Blazer so the whole car smelled like a barn and drove over to Publix. (It’s the closest and it’s always the closet in a way that feels like any other choice is less an errand and more a journey. I also realize that’s part of the problem, but that’s a topic for another day.)
Now, remember, it’s New Year’s Eve. It’s early afternoon, the time of afternoon where it’s still pre-lunch for a lot of people like me who slept in, but it’s still New Year’s Eve so after finding the frozen corn, I wandered around aimlessly looking for some kind of festive-ish snack situation for the husband and myself. You know, just bopping around trying to decide if BOGO crackers are a decent deal, if the husband will eat a whole cheese ball, if I want green grapes or the mix. (Note: Grapes for the new year are a thing we learned when we moved to South Florida and since I grew up with people trying to feed me black-eyed peas with collard greens cooked in ham hocks, I quickly embraced the idea. I have always hated black-eyed peas, even though I adore almost every other lentil and legume, and my inner vegetarian never liked ham-flavored foods even as a kid.)
Sometimes when everything else seems complicated food seems like the easiest decision, especially with a restrictive diet and a lot of same-food habits. Other times, it feels like the whole grocery store is designed to compress all my indecision into a maze or labyrinth.
I’ve heard of people who find labyrinths meditate to walk and sometimes I find myself in a similar trance at the store. The familiar aisles of pickles and chips and the frustrating way I always pick the store that doesn’t have enough “international” food items when I’m in the mood to make something specific.
That day I collected my items in my reusable bags and pushed them out toward the car thinking of perhaps reading a book the rest of the afternoon to try to stifle the unease. I’m minding my own business, pushing my cart and paying just enough attention to people and traffic not to endanger anyone and stepped into fate like a spiderweb.
I have a habit of not being able to ignore animals in distress. I pick up lost and cold bees to relocate them to flowers. I have a cat I caught on the side of the interstate when she was a kitten. I’ve been known to pick up an anhinga that got stunned by a passing truck and ride with it for miles until it was better (to get it off the narrow bridge). Our home is full of rescued cats and at least one rescued duck who prefers watching TV at night to being in the coop with the others.
So, when I see a duckling drinking from a puddle in front of a taxi, I can’t leave it there. I parked my cart in its path while the driver was letting out a passenger, and chased the duckling around the car and back up onto the curb where it hid in the bushes. I moved my cart back to the sidewalk and peered into the bushes.
Since ducklings don’t tend to spontaneously spawn out of thin air (with the possible exception of my Joy’s side of the coop because she’s excellent at hiding eggs, like a master Easter Bunny apprentice), I looked around for the mom. Mamma duck was in the bushes, but she had a limp and didn’t want to get up and walk.
Now, I’m invested. I need to take the groceries out to the car, but the duckling keeps running out to the puddle in one of the busiest parts of the parking lot. A couple of store employees on break are watching my white lady shenanigans with amusement as I run back and forth through the bushes while my groceries warm in the Florida sun. (Luckily, I had my reusable cold bag with me that day.) I finally get the duckling to hang out with mom long enough to go put my groceries in the car and come back to return the cart.
By now, I’ve decided I can’t leave the ducks in the parking lot or bushes. I have to catch them and bring them home. I’m not entirely sure what the husband is going to say about all this as we already have an absurd menagerie, but I can’t leave the ducks where they are.
I spent at least an hour in the bushes. I caught mamma duck easily, but the little one was fast. You have no idea how fast a duckling is until you’ve tried to catch one. Eventually, I gave up trying to catch the little one with the mother under one arm like an annoyed football. A store bagger had come out on break and wanted to help. He’d brought a box and we tried to convince mamma to sit in the box while we caught baby. Mamma was not having it.
In the meantime, I went in to get a cup of ice to entice the duckling with the melted water. I went in for a container of parrot food because that was the closest thing to birdseed they had (and I wanted the little one to stop trying to eat plastic garbage and come close enough I could grab it).
At some point another store employee came out on break to inform me I needed to feed the ducks bread. I explained how bread can be harmful to waterfowl because it fills them up without providing them with proper nutrients, thus causing things like angle wing. It prevents them from being able to fly and escape danger. He told me, “beggars can’t be choosers,” and eventually went back inside.
At this point, I have mamma duck under my arm again and I’m crawling in and under bushes doing some sort of duck yoga trying to catch the baby. The helpful bagger has returned with a broom to “encourage gently” the duckling toward me and we’ve attracted the attention of a few customers. Once we managed to get a very motivated guy on our team to help flush the duckling back my way, I finally caught the little fellow.
With an adult duck under my arm and a baby duck in my hand, I headed to the car followed by the grocery employee holding the cardboard box and the customer, excitedly telling me how much he likes wildlife. Since I had the husband’s car, once I was close enough, the keys on my belt loop unlocked the door so I asked the guys if one of them could open the back door to the Blazer. I put baby in the box in the back seat and mamma duck in with her baby. She promptly flapped her way out.
I thanked the gentlemen for their help and assured them I had ducks at home and knew how to take care of them. Then, I climbed behind the wheel and took them home to quarantine them in the husband’s home office.
As for figuring out my life? I’m not sure the collapse of polite society and democracy is the best time for all that. I do know that Publix (mamma duck) and Bogo (duckling, all grown up) are thriving and have joined the rest of the flock.
