Ducks are us

My life has taken on a new and profound meaning since Pepper Zen arrived.  In fact, Pepper entered 10 Pearl Street at the most tumultuous time of my life.  Tony and I have some big decisions to make: stay on TI or explore the bigger island to the south, how to approach the children's education, should I continue writing.  And the Christmas holidays have begun so there are now six boys between our two families.  Life has become a testosterone-fuelled tempest, a sweat- and sulphur-smelling one.

     Thank God for Pepper.  She settles me as I watch her during ‘free time’ when runs around catching flies, sits in the salad patch while meditating or paddling in the bathtub where she eats  the newly hatched tadpoles.  I have studied her.  I adore her beauty.  Do you know a duck’s webbed feet are full of spider veins and are hot to touch?  Have you listened to the breath of a duck?  It's like a summer breeze.  Have you buried your face in the feathers of a duck and inhaled that sweet, birdy scent? You should try it.

Pepper Zen being Zen in the salad greens

      Living with and loving a duck is time consuming, but well worth it. It is much like having a baby, although the billed little one can advise on life’s meaning and direction.

     Caring for a duck is exactly like caring for a baby.  The duck and baby have needs which must be met because they are so helpless.  I confess, as my children are older and more independent, I am sometimes humbled that a wee feathered soul seeks me out for life’s necessities.  

     At night, I bring Pepper into the bathroom for a late supper.  

     Then we shower together.  She loves the water spray.  I was so wrong to rush out and rescue her from the first wet season rain.  Duh.  Duck wisdom has taught me there is more than one way to skin a cat.  

     Where I used to relish the feeling of my babies’ soft skin against my bare chest, I now savour the rubbery touch of Pepper’s warm, webbed feet on mine.  I delight in the tap-tap-tap of her bill as she nips at the water droplets on my feet.  I smile as she dips her head, over and over in the ankle deep water.  Ah, the wonder of new life.

     Is it possible to know when to exit a bath with a duck?  Well, it’s no different from abandoning a bath with your baby.  It’s time to get out when they poo.  It is bound to happen with a baby and a duck.

     Then, it’s bed time.   A duck requires a firm routine, no different to a baby. Feeding, bathing, story-time or cooing, then sleeping.
     And in the morning I chuckle at the frustrations I felt the night before when Pepper Zen quacked and quacked and quacked until I fed her.  Headstrong babies don’t respond to controlled crying.  I can tell you that a headstrong duck does not take kindly to controlled quacking.

     When she starts quacking in the dark of night, I say in that lucid state between sleep and wakefulness and the same harsh voice I used for my babies, ‘Go to sleep.’  When she keeps quacking I say, ‘Go to fucking sleep,’ not unlike that heart-warming novel narrated by Noni Hazelhurst.  Then, overcome by guilt as I am sucked into consciousness, I rush to Pepper and gush at her beauty.  And feed her, of course.

     If you are considering having another baby or even your first, consider a duck.  It is so rewarding. 

     On a financial note, the cost of raising a child to the end of school age is $250, 000 for low income families and $500,000 for the middle-income earner.

     It is significantly cheaper to raise a duck especially since the life expectancy of a quacker is between 9 and 12 years.  Fifteen years is possible with much-loved and pampered ducks.

     Remember, the youth of today are the most narcissistic generation of all time. So don’t think your child will be spoon feeding or toileting you when you are 85.  No siree!  They’ll be off, enjoying the benefits of the private school education and French horn lessons you paid for. Either way, you'll be on your own, but at least raising a duck will enable you to save money so you can live out the winter of your life in relative luxury.

     Don’t have your marriage or relationship threatened by surly teenagers or petulant children who play you off against your spouse.  Ducks don’t ask ‘Why?’ or ‘Why not?’  Duck don’t ask the same question ten times over in the hope you will give in and allow your young child to watch Paranormal Activity 4 or have a sleepover at their friend’s house where they’ll play Grand Theft Auto all night. Think duck.  Think simplicity. Think exponential love.

     Consider the environment.  Ducks are environmentally friendly whereas raising a child creates a deep carbon footprint from which Mother Earth will never recover.  Children require refrigerated food, air-conditioned dwellings and hours of time being driven to and from school, all manner of lessons and play dates with friends.

     A duck will bring you all the contentment you have been hankering for, a contentment that no amount of reading Deepak Chopra, Dr Wayne Dyer, Khalil Gibran or the Dalai Lama can bring you. 

     A duck is the way forward, for humanity, for the planet.

     Ducks are us.

     Quack, quack, quack.