Positively Ducky!

I was in the park in the central part of town today. There is a fountain in the middle of the pond, flowers all around the edges. A bench or two here and there. And today, a whole lot of ducks. I was sitting reading Dostoyevsky, eating a chocolate chip cookie from the other day. The ducks were going crazy. They all appeared female, but I think a lot of them were just young so they might still change. They kept diving under the water, and then popping up in different places, an underwater sort of tag. It was hilarious to watch them in their antics. Bit too cold for me to think joining them would be pleasant. And the water a bit to green...
Earlier, walking close to the stream that wends through town, watched two fish trying to avoid me. They're gray, and would blend in so well if they just held still. And don't know what they have to be afraid of. No one fishes in this stream. But they flitted so I caught them in my eye. And then they hurtled themselves all in a rush, one after the other, over a little water fall. Whoosh! Whoosh! Then no more fish.
There used to be a gold fish in a pond. We bonded in a sense. Or maybe I just liked him. I'd look at him every time I walked past. He'd try to hide from me. I don't know how he ended up there. He was all alone, but seemed to run the place. Made it his home. Maybe transplanted from a home pond. Maybe jumped the falls from some place higher up like the ones I watched today. But he's gone now. I don't know where too. There has been so much rain this summer. Maybe it was just too much for him to stay.
Kelly told me that her father has a little pond with gold fish in it. In the winter it freezes over, fish and all. In the spring it thaws, and so do they. Just like that. Something...something...Cryogenics. Hmmm...it starts with fish I guess.
And Dostoyevsky continues to deliver. Really packs some punches. Makes me think. Human nature. Things about faith. I shared before from page 47. Now on to page 155

"For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has beenn attempted, the result has been only grotesque."

What a powerful statement. One to take to heart. One to really consider. Christ is the ultimate ideal. There is no better, no more worthy example for people, be they Christian or otherwise. But sadly, there is such a lack of really conforming to the mind of Christ on any level, in any sphere. And yet when we study Him, when we see what He was really like, how can anyone not be overwhelmed by the goodness of Him? Not long to have something of His heart inside? Still I fail, fail, fail.
So many thinks to think. How have I managed this little life. This little snippet of time in which I have time to think, to contemplate, to bask in the beauty of literature. Believe you me, taking on Dostoyevsky for fun is not something most people have the time or fortitude to do. But it is making me think, and I do have the time, because that just is what I have right now. I know it's fleeting, even while I don't know how long it will last, so I need to take hold of it and make something of it and all of that as well.
And now up past page 110 of my writing project. So maybe there is some reality in the myth of childhood dreams and I'll produce something. And I've at least amassed a small international following, faithful enough to buy something if my name is on it, or so they've said from time to time when I bring up the fact that I write. And at the moment it's true. I do write. But still hard to say what much it will come to.
I also spend time doing pointless sort of searches. There are those addictions like facebook that are so easy to succumb to when one has time.
I found through a friend's page (and an actual friend at that, not just an acquaintance or someone I knew once when I might even have been another person entirely myself) a link to a list that talks about things that let you know you're an English major. This April marked the 9 year point. 9 YEARS!!! 9 years that have come and gone since I ceased to be a practicing English major sitting in a classroom of peers and dissected literature and felt the rush of knowing and discovering and informing others of the rightness of my particular opinion. 9 years, and yet I looked at that list and with more than half of them I nodded my head. And with many I thought, how could someone NOT feel or know those things. Like the differences between there, their and they're.
Then I thought of things that would be on such a list if it was talking about knowing you're an English teacher. Like when you use "use to" and "used to" which sound precisely the same when spoken. Or what phrasal verbs are an exactly why they're so confusing to language learners. I could go on and on, but Katcha needs to go out, and I don't mind. I've been sitting here awhile as before I started this post I added a good ten pages to my story. Memories of writing 3 massive papers in one day because my computer was accidentally murdered, after the only time in my history that I actually wrote papers early. (sigh)
And so adieu. And off to walk the dog.