The Fallacy of Perfection
There is no perfect partner, parent, pet, profession. Only what calls to you, pulls and tugs and carries you away, often despite your better judgement. Qualms and concerns are the mind’s affair. The more the better, to keep it occupied. The heart follows, trusts, believes in its intuitions. Perfection is a label, a condition, a judgement (a fallacy). A weighted word, laden with useless yearning. “Just do your best” seems lackadaisical.
I grew up wanting to be perfect, playing against the odds, rarely winning (once I did, by the grace of God. Once I did and I was, holy ethereal moment. Twice, at our wedding. Three times, at Scott’s birth). In between, I made choices based on my best reckoning. Some of them brilliant. None of them perfect. Yesterday I was caught in a poor decision. Heap of trouble and I was seven again, red-handed. I wanted to explain, defend, but all my words were terrified and fled. How many times do I need to re-live this? A grown woman, speechless, trapped like a rat (that stupid tail, you were almost away!)
I’ll tell you the shining moment, to balance my poor choice. I was in college, travelling with The New England Youth Ensemble in Poland/Russia, 1980, as Friendship Ambassadors. I was chosen as soloist one evening, big, big surprise, announced without my knowledge and the piece unrehearsed. I panicked but smiled, said to Jeremy, our concertmaster, “What note do I come in on?” It’s funny now, and by some miracle I remembered (no sheet music, we’re professionals), played like an angel in that glorious cathedral. I blustered at Dr. Rittenhouse who quipped, “Well, you didn’t have time to be nervous, did you?”
I never know how to end these poems. ‘Confessional’ seems so shaming. Vulnerable is softer, truer. When all is said and done I really have done the best that I could do. I might have done better, but I could have done far, far worse.
LBM 8/23/2022
