Today I was looking at how to implement phase 2 of WomanNotWaiting.com with different community building tools.  Some aspects of each I like but there isn’t one that seems to be just right for the vision I have so far for WomanNotWaiting. But I kept digging.

As I sat there reading the plethora of documentation, watching demos, piddling (figuratively of course) on the non-intuitive designs, and twiddling my hair while my puppy empatheticly paced back and forth across the living room, I saw a pair of dark, intense eyes popping in and out of my periphery.  The more I researched and analyzed, the more frequent and more daring those eyes became until, in an act of sheer desperation, they parked themselves above the top edge of my computer screen.

“Did you miss me?” they seemed to say.

What a peculiar little creature.  She looked like a duck, but she didn’t quack like a duck, so was she a duck? (see The Ducks Are Quacking)

Whatever she was, she was pretty good at making herself invisible, showing herself just long enough to make an entrance and then disappearing again when she drew too much attention. That would explain the plumage floating around the condo since this morning. It even still Smells Like Duck. My fearless hunting dog just couldn’t get close enough to really see her, so all Lola got was a taste of a few feathers around the edges, nothing more. Not exactly what Lola wanted.

I stopped typing and looked up at her perfectly coiffed tuft of yellow plumes making its way gracefully around my computer and onto my lap. From what I could tell, she was genuinely happy to see me. Her silky smooth tail feathers were wagging ever so softly and her soulful dark eyes were wide and bright.

But not a peep. She had no voice. Her eyes did the talking.

“Don’t you remember me?” She spread out her wings, stood up on one foot, twirled, gently sat back down, and began to meticulously reposition her delicate feathers.

Of course! The Duckerina! Always striving for perfection, but always falling short in minutia that only she can see…as long as she keeps a safe distance away from the others.

If she could speak she would be saying:

“I can’t let them see me this way. There’s just one more tiny thing here. If I fix that, then it will be perfect…”

…but it never is because unless she melts into the wall as a duck flower, there will always be just one more quill out of place.

OMG!  I’m doing it again!  I’m sitting here trying to finish this blog, trying to make the most profound point, deleting, rewriting, judging, rethinking, rewriting, tweaking the words, moving stuff around, rewriting, fanning myself in this heat, rethinking, rewriting…

OK. Let’s cut to the duck chase.

I finally caught little miss perfect Duckerina and the exercise did the trick. She dropped the golden egg she had been harbouring for decades because she was just afraid it wasn’t quite ready yet.

Talk about anal-ysis paralysis!

Are we dancing around the “global warming” debate, mentally paralyzed, while waiting for the perfect solution?

What about you? Are you holding in your voice for fear that your inspired idea is not good enough?

Time To Pluck The Duck! On this site, you are a Woman Not Waiting.  Share away!