I was on Duck Lake, in a paddle boat.  The lake is adjacent to the Houston Zoo. It’s not large, but large enough for the ducks. Unlike an ocean, you can see the shore from every point. Somewhere near the middle, I stopped churning the paddles and rested. I say “somewhere near the middle” because the middle is hard to define. The lake isn’t symmetrical, but the ducks don’t seem to mind. Perhaps their sense of geometry is different? Mine was the only boat in sight. The water lapped and burbled, the sky floated in place, and the ducks drifted unruffled by my presence. Something hung in the air, and we spent some moments there together, me in my middle, the ducks in theirs.

And thoughts of middles rippled through my mind. Middle ears and middle fingers. The little piggy in the middle and the middle of the night. Middle names and middle school and middle of the road. Middle Ages, Middle English, Middle-earth. Caught in the middle, middle-aged and middle class, in the middle of something, seeking middle justified middle ground and landing smack dab in the middle of the middle of nowhere, playing both sides against the middle.

The boat swayed and strayed from center, the ducks indifferently in tow. The water still lapped and burbled, the sky still floated in place, and something still hung in the air. I took a breath, and there — in my middle of the lake — I understood the middling truth: if it looks like a duck and swims like a duck, walks and talks and sounds like a duck, then you’re likely somewhere near the middle, and right where you belong.