#65 | Joan Puddleduck, a parable
Without consent, and with her name redacted, I'm publishing a 'guest post' today. I rarely speak to my great aunt, but she illuminates life when I do. Last week, she emailed me, and here it is:
An email from my Great Aunt
Darling Hector,
Happy birthday. It feels it were only this morning that you were heavy and fat (those cheeks!), being carried around by your mother—and little changes: Few would want to hold you now. Here's a story your great grandfather told me in the winter of 1955...
Just down from the town of Torbay was a village and in this village a pond. On that pond, sat a duck called Joan Puddleduck. Joan was a bitter Puddleduck, a duck in mid-life, whose parents brought her up on the same pond that she now lived.
Joan's parents drilled into her the rhythmic advice that passes in a hereditary way from duck to duck. "Patience is a virtue", they would say, when she was catching flies. "You get what you deserve", she'd be taught if she slipped on the muddy bank. Back in those days, when a duckling, her pond had been thriving, full of friends, flies and fish. The village pond was a hum with life. With her brothers and sisters, and their friends, too, she'd dip, and dive, and bob and circle the pond.
But, as the years went by, dry summers followed dry winters, and the next summers were dry again. The pond began to shrink.
Short of space, her brother, sisters and friends moved out, promising to come back (which they never did). Joan Puddleduck's parents passed away, disappearing, as ducks do, over the hill to a quiet place to sleep, and Joan found herself alone, in her shrinking pond.
Joan was the last occupant of the pond, which, perhaps appropriately but equally tragically, began to resemble a puddle. Rocks, the old farm-dog from the barns across the lane, would come by from time to time. He'd drink from the pond.
"Leave the water in my pond!" Joan would shout; she'd squark him away. From some distance, Rocks would ask, "why are you angry about me drinking from your pond?". To which, upset, Joan Puddleduck would reply, "you can drink when it rains, but not today. When the pond grows, and then there will be water for everyone".
More than anything, Joan wanted her friends back, she wanted the pond full, and she wanted the rain to come. "Waiting is rarely worth the wait," Rocks would say, "a ducks happiness grows the more it learns." He'd go on: "go out, lift your beak, and find water—don't wait for the rain."
But Joan refused. Scared of leaving, she would wait for the rain. And as the seasons went by, not a drop would land in Puddleduck's pond. Every time a storm cloud floated overhead, Joan's hopes would quicken, only to be crushed as the storm broke far across the fields.
As winter arrived, and being only, by now, a small pond, it quickly froze. Thirsty for water, unkempt, and angry, Joan Puddleduck stood on the ice, looking up and waiting for the skies to break. Then, all at once, the grey clouds opened! But alas, it was not rain that fell on her feathers, but snow. She could not swim, bob, or paddle, in snow. Cold, Joan puddled out of the wind and sat next to her pond. Joan sat, waiting for spring, dreaming of the past, hopeless for the future.
Winter crunched its way into spring. Still, no rain came. Rocks returned from his barn and said (once more), "Look about you, move, find a fresh pond where the rains come more readily."
"No, this summer, the rains will come, and my pond, which is now a puddle, will become a lake filled with duck from across the county. You'll see old Rocks." Joan would say the same to anyone who came by: "I'm waiting for the rain. Patience is a virtue. Good thing's come to a duck that waits. There will be rain next year, I'm sure of it."
Years pass. The puddle, once a pond, became dark earth. Joan Puddleduck stood firm. Her feathers waterless, her beak drooped, one day she leaves her home, as her parents once did, to find a hedge to rest her eyes forever.
Now, still alone, Joan reaches the crest of the hill, overlooking the barns and fields. Her old pond is far below, and she turns away for the last time.
Beyond the crest of the hill, Joan looks into the sunset. Towards the setting sun is a dam. The dam holds back a broad lake, flashing gold under the sky. Joan gasps; the lake is filled with all types of duck. Mallards bob their heads, Canvasbacks flap overhead, Spotted Whistlers whistle on the near bank, Alabios huddle (as they tend to do, when ready for bed). Most loudly, Joan hears the cry of Hook Bills, singing their evening song. Quietly, she sings the song back—alone, on the hill.
Rocks has followed Joan up the slope, to the crest, where she sits, struck. He gets closer:
"Puddleduck, my dear. You don't get what you want without action. You never risked today for tomorrow, and therefore today never changed. Your home, your pond, is reduced to a puddle. But remember, that puddle never kept you there."
They sit at the top of the hill, watching the busy scene below. "It's not too late, Puddleduck. Stretch and flap those wings. Embrace your dreams."
And, without another word, Joan stands and shakes out her dry feathers. She stretches out her wings, from tip to tip (as every Puddleduck should do), and takes flight to her new home: the lake beyond the hill.
My week in books
Hector Huges and I read Benjamin Franklin’s biography by Walter Isaacson while relaxing on the coast in Kilifi. It was, by every measure, a delight. Franklin was a genius: a printer, a scientist (link to inventions, too many for even this long letter), a postman (he set up the American postal service), and the signatory to all four documents critical for American independence. His long life was spent frugally and industriously, his two most favoured (and repeated) traits. He was the founder of the self-improvement movement and was a state builder and organiser. All this, and still charming and relaxed in every company he kept (from Kings to Lords, to the middle-classes he proudly is a member of). Recommended.
Live well,
H