A pink circle with the text "memories" flashed across my phone screen. I tapped it, knowing that whatever Instagram was about to show me would haunt me.
It showed an image of a clay duck I had made—sitting in a barren wooden toolbox I bought to turn into its house. The date: exactly one year ago.
Was that really one year ago?
I looked over at the bench near my table. There the toolbox sat (or screamed as it was now firetruck red instead of a pale beige). I had painted it and added some furniture since that Instagram post. Its kitchen was nearly done, and its bedroom was only missing the final touches. But still, it was unfinished.
The Duck House joins a long list of unfinished projects that haunt my notebooks and paintbrushes. A book, another book, a painting, a collection of old papers, a fountain pen, a stack of notecards, a half-written novel...all reminders of grand ideas I had that I simply didn't complete.
For me, finishing projects is complicated. There is always something more pressing to attend to. And, when your project is building a miniature 19th-century house for your clay duck, you can understand why. Yes, something will inevitably feel more pressing than that.
But, there's always at least ten minutes of my day to spare, isn't there? Ten minutes to paint some wood, or cut up some construction paper, or mold a shape out of clay. Ten minutes.
And so, after many ten minutes, I present the (nearly finished) Duck House.
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