The Stories We Tell Ourselves

I was watching the early June sunrise on a warm and buggy morning when I saw a huge white bird swimming around the corner. My brain couldn’t register what I was seeing, scanning through the possibilities - huge gull? swan? snow goose? - but none of what I knew fit. Finally my brain registered it as a large domestic duck, the kind people raise not the kind swimming wild in the lake.

After watching the duck for only a little while, I realized I had already created a story about the duck I was telling myself was true. The story that spun itself in my mind was a sad story of someone who had bought a duckling for Easter and then finding that a duck is not so easy to care for, had dumped the duck at the lake with no care at all for its survival. The duck had been abandoned, and how would it possibly survive? I was angry at these people and sad for the duck.

The duck was so sweet and docile, with an expression that made me think it was smiling. After quite a short time the duck swam right over near where I was sitting on the shore. I think if I had let it, the duck would have climbed right up in my lap. It was soft and vulnerable and generally unafraid. It was also quite plump, with wings that looked too small to carry it and seemed to be doing ok.

As I realized how quickly this story had come and how it was built on no facts at all, I was intrigued by the workings of my own mind. I could easily have spun a completely different story, one that didn’t involve horrible humans abandoning such a gentle creature.

The story could be that this duck had escaped as a duckling, climbing between the chicken wire opening, figuring out how to forage for food, traveling who knows how many years and miles and finally finding this beautiful lake where it could thrive.

The story could be that this duck was being raised for food and somehow managed to open her pen and fly away. The duck then befriended other birds - or maybe a squirrel - who helped guide her to the place they thought she had the best chance for her life. Maybe she had already befriended a goose or a mallard and found safe places to spend the night.

Maybe this duck had befriended the children or grandchildren of the big white duck that lived at this lake many years ago and inter-bred with the mallards. It has been many years since I saw the offspring of that duck let alone the duck itself but who knows, maybe this duck was a relation.

Maybe this duck was a pet who was not treated with kindness. She was clever and befriended a crow who helped her open the coop and then helped her on her journey to the lake. Maybe the duck and the crow were now the best of friends with the duck bringing shiny trinkets and bits of corn thrown by the humans to the crow and the crow keeping her safe at night. The duck now had a much better life than before.

With a little more imagination, perhaps this duck was the Goddess herself come to Earth. The Goddess knows how much I love feathers so she had come to see me as the biggest ball of fluffy white feathers she could conjure up. She had come to my favorite sunrise location and preened herself, dropping one feather after another like golden coins at my feet. She had smiled at me to let me know I was loved.

We tell ourselves so many stories, often unconsciously, to explain what we cannot explain in the world around us. My stories often tend towards the worst possible scenarios rather than the best and most magical. This includes the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, how we got here and all the ways in which we are not enough.

When I was young I had a teacher who called me “le petit canard” - the little duck. Like the big white duck, there are many stories about myself I think I know - but perhaps just as many of those stories were spun quickly, unconsciously and without any facts to back them up. Perhaps the many stories I tell myself about who I am, about what I can and cannot do, about how life “is” and “will always be” also need to be reimagined.

After much contemplation, I’ve decided I’m going with the last story, that the big white duck is the Goddess herself. Since it seems unlikely I will ever know for sure and no one can tell me for certain I’m wrong, for this story at least I want to believe in possibilities. Maybe then I will also believe a better story about myself and the people around me.