Odd

This penguin lives on a shelf in my bedroom. I moved him into better lighting for this photo. I impulsively thrifted him from Jeffrey’s years ago, drawn to his mixture of adorable, awkward, and odd features: close-set eyes, wings dragging a little behind him, a slightly upturned beak, a protruding lower belly, and poor, lumpy posture. He looks content, maybe a bit unsure.

I felt like he needed a home, so I “adopted” him for something around four dollars.

I don’t know much about this little knickknack’s origin or history other than that it’s handmade. The material is unconfirmed—a mixture of clay and concrete would be my best guess. He has no markings, no brand, no signature. And I like him that way. He is one of a kind, and looking at him brings me joy.

After bringing him home, I asked my mom, who is a talented crocheter, if she could make a scarf for him, and she did. It suits him well, crossing just above his bulbous belly and softly dragging alongside his wings.

Thrifting is one of my favorite pastimes. Often I leave a store empty-handed. It’s really the looking that I enjoy most. I think it scratches some primal urge that, long ago, might have been satisfied through foraging or hunting. My practice of photography feels similar. I love foraging for photographs in the wild—something to take home and remember without bringing more physical things into our house. Though admittedly, I do have a growing stack of prints that need homes of their own.

I think there is something to be said for the things we keep that serve no real purpose other than being looked at. I try not to accumulate too much in this category, but as someone who loves to look, I enjoy filling my space with pieces that reflect my personal sense of beauty, which includes this goofy penguin.

I find it sweet the way humans attach themselves to inanimate objects. We name them, dress them, assign them personality. Rationally, we know they are just things, but something in us insists on treating them with a kind of gentle affection. Maybe that impulse is not a foolish one.

Perhaps it reveals something about our humanity; our instinct to care, to find meaning, to love.

Sometimes I relate to this penguin’s lack of purpose, so to speak. Being a mother is certainly purposeful; it is no small vocation to be entrusted with raising little souls. But there is still a part of me that wonders what God expects of me alongside that, or perhaps down the road when my role shifts from mother to matron.

Maybe part of growing older and wiser is learning to see the way God sees. Not in grand revelations, but in small adjustments of the eye, noticing worth where the world might see none. Appreciating the handmade, the uneven, the odd. Because if this penguin had been perfectly sculpted, I probably would have walked right past him. Instead, it was his imperfections that made him stand out.

And if we can learn to see beauty, and value, in a lumpy little thrifted penguin, it might become easier to see it elsewhere too—in the people around us, and maybe even in ourselves.

Because the truth is, most of us are a little like this penguin; awkwardly shaped, unsure, carrying the marks of the hands that made us. But still worthy of a place on the shelf.