Today, I was waiting in my brother's
girlfriend's car until a closer time to board the coach that would
take me the hell away from the seaside town where people go to end
the portion of their lives that could be called interesting, and it
was raining pretty bad.
I don't even just mean it was
unpleasant. Anyone reading this may be unaware of the storms that
have gripped the bottom half of the united kingdom for the last week
or so, but there have been floods and road closures around where my
family lives, and I've been worried about my flight back home, to
Moony. It's that bad.
But I digress. Next to the car, on one
of those low flower installments you get on promenades to make the
place look nicer, was a crow. I think it was trying to get into a
shell or something. Now, I know the phrase 'water off a duck's
back', as in 'don't let it get under your skin, but let it go
without touching you'. And it's always been kind of a good idea.
It's a good job I adore cliches, because I think of that line a lot.
The water droplets on this crow were
first apparent when it shook, sending the water everywhere and
leaving its' feathers blessedly free of water for a few seconds until
it began gathering again. What struck me, in that moment, while my
brother's band played music through the speaker system and cigarette
smoke curled over the top of a window, was that while the water fell
onto that crows' feathers, it seemed utterly unphased.
Now, this is a hell of an extended
metaphor, because what if each droplet of water were an issue of some
kind. The faint ones were the little things, like doing the washing,
e-mail that freely gendered individual. The more noticable droplets
were things like, say, essays, university money costs. The really big
ones? Well they'd be parent issues, gender identity dysphoria. You
know, to take examples at random.
Sometimes, the droplets fell together,
small things combining into bigger things. Deadlines, mock exams,
pressure to do something to make someone blood related proud.
And then, just as if they were simply
droplets of hydrogen and double oxygen, the crow would shake free
its' problems, and continue on whatever undecided course the small
creature had picked out over the dirt.
If I could do that, just shrug it all
off and be content with myself, I would love to do so. But then,
that's what these trips to Sweden are for. However, then the water
started falling onto the same ink black feathers, and I realised that
no matter how frequently you free yourself from problems and issues,
you're never really going to be content, because the water will keep
gathering. All you can do is try to make it a little easier on
yourself by only attracting the small droplets, and not letting the
bigger ones weigh you down.
