“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface but always paddling like the dickens underneath”
Michael Caine, CBE, British actor .
Does this describe my blogging friend at counting ducks? When I read his post today (well I am assuming it is a he) I thought how profound are some of our thoughts in the middle of the night.
I am one of the lucky people who decide to go to sleep; turn out the light and go to sleep for the next 7 or 8 hours. Rarely do I waken in the night. When I do I lie there and wonder what has awoken me. Is it Lotte moving around on the bed, is it a loud noise from the street, the kids next door finishing up after a party. But whatever the reason I usually take about an hour before resuming my sleep.
In that time I usually get up and make a hot drink, camomile or ginger and lemon tea and take it back to bed with my notebook and pencil. Sometimes what I write doesn’t bear reading in the morning as it makes little or no sense. But just occasionally, I have a break through and one such was my recent poem on grief.
More often I think about what I have done and as my mind settles on a memory I realise just how lucky I have been in my life. I have seen places many people will never visit, I have made friends around the world, I have a lovely and loving family and a warm and comfortable home in which to live. And I have the memories of a life shared with my dashing (not so) young, Scotsman.
My friend at counting ducks says rather eloquently that “Ultimately though it’s what you’ve done, who you’ve known and how you acted when there was no compass or someone to judge your actions that measure how your using your brief time on this planet.” He adds as a conclusion “Just connect with whats around you and people who matter with you.”
This is a profound thought and one I really endorse. I choose how I will spend the rest of my life and the people I will share it with. There are some acquaintances that I know are toxic to me and so I no longer have anything to do with them. Does this wisdom come with age? I think the answer (at least for me) is yes as it has taken me a while to arrive at this point.
So thanks to counting ducks for giving me the idea for today’s blog. No disturbed sleep last night. Eight hours solid.
“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. ” Dale Carnegie
I choose how I will spend the rest of my life 