The butts of two ducks turn into the protruding eyes of a crocodile as I find my peace at a lake.

Water is such a remarkable material. Around us the ground bends and curves to account for the residue of impacts, of the growth of trees and vegetation and of all that walks upon it. In contrast, the lake is levelled. Alive through the waves the wind produce, resonating with the surrounding, yet detached from it.

Sitting here, I can’t help but take notice of how the lake avoids any self-proclamation but instead reflect the world around it. Trees are projected to its surface and the clouds form their mirror image only to, on occasion, be disturbed by the bubbles forming from the life underneath the surface. The lake humbly returns the light that hits it. It’s only right there, at my closest inspection, right at my feet, that I can see anything but reflections. Yet I don’t even see the lake itself, I see the bottom beneath it.

The past week has been emotional and the events that unfolded required me to feel and reflect outside my own senses. It came to me that I had to accept that this time differences cause divide. It’s strange how reluctant I was towards the conclusion, and for so much longer than the week past. Not due to divide, which I have never really seen as a problem. Circumstances, lives, ourselves change and the impermanence of that within is something to be celebrated even in endings. More likely, my recultance laid in the nature of differences. Finding answers and understanding have always been my finest form of worship and being misunderstood and unheard always my nemesis. While difference does not necessarily mean incompatibility, on occasion, differences form a one way barrier.

In front of me the lake remains levelled, unmoved by my thoughts, unbothered by all that surrounds it. Gently it selflessly attends to and reflects the world and all within it. Also I can be seen on the surface. It is a contorted version of myself as the waves distort and abstract my features. I wonder if we always see others, and they us, as abstract reflections, distorted from a true form. Only for the reflections, on close inspection, to reveal that we are no different. Beneath us all we are all just the sand and dust at the bottom of a transparent illusion.