I had no idea I was a perfectionist until I was in my late thirties. To be a perfectionist, I thought a person had to actually achieve some perfection, and I knew that I never even came close. But that is exactly what a perfectionist is: someone who is obsessed with their flaws. Perfectionists aren’t really perfectionists; they are “mistakeists;” They can see only what is wrong with the picture, never fully enjoying anything they have created because they are living inside its imperfections.
I’ve been told the Navahos deliberately include a flaw in their blankets because they know they are only human and don’t want to offend Great Spirit by seeking perfection. I don’t know if this is true, but the thought of intentionally keeping an error, holding an error as sacred, as a gift of humility – well, I like this idea a lot. It comforts me and helps me surrender a bit of my perfectionism whenever I am lucky enough to uncover it. (I can never surrender it all because if I tried to surrender all of my perfectionism, I would be stuck in perfectionism again.)
This poem captures a rather mundane moment in my life as I was standing at my kitchen sink cleaning the bottom of an electric skillet. I include it here as part of unpacking my personal baggage because I think my suffering over not being able to get the bottom of this skillet clean reveals how perfectionism weaves its way into our everyday lives, stealing our joy.
You are standing at the sink washing dishes, gazing out the window into your postage-stamp sized backyard. You are thirty-one, married, with two small, healthy children. You are a teacher; your husband is a teacher. You have everything you ever dreamed of having.
But the bottom of the used electric skillet you bought at Goodwill haunts you. If only you could get it to shine, maybe your life would shine. Maybe you would have at last done it right. Maybe you would be able to see, in the reflection of the scoured frying pan, a validation for your life, a validation for the choices you have made.
You feel bullied by the bottom of this electric skillet, and you are ashamed of being so weak. You are sure you will never tell anyone about this moment.
The bottoms of all your other pots must shine too, every bit of baked-on food removed. They must glow like new, preferably hanging from a rack over the stove, their copper bottoms shining, reflecting to the world your right to breathe.
The view from the window above the sink also accuses you. Where there were blackberry vines only a year ago, flowers now grow. You dug out those prickly vines the summer before your son was born, your body bloated by the nine-pound boy you were carrying. Standing on swollen feet, wearing silly little girl maternity clothes, you chopped and piled and dug, sweat dripped into your eyes.
The blackberry vines used to cover your fence. Now, after all of your work, you see that the fence sags. You can see with clarity, through your kitchen window that needs washing, the flower beds your husband so painstakingly double dug.
But the flowers are all wrong, you think, just rows of dahlias and zinnias. There is no art in it, just stupid color.
“How can anyone wreck a flower garden?” you wonder. You aren’t sure how this could be done, but you are sure you have done it. You can’t even plant a flower garden correctly.
And besides that, the yard is still uneven, small. The ground, rough and sloping. The cement on the patio is cracked.
“You are a professional,” you think, “married to a professional. Why are you living like losers?”
Maybe if the bottom of the frying pan is shiny enough, the past will crumble with the crud as it swirls down the drain.
Then you see the scratches on your stainless steel sink, The permanent scratches that you did not even make, and you know it is hopeless. You know for sure you are too scratched, too covered in decades of grime. You will never shine again.
If It’s Not Personal . . .
Once we own our personal baggage, magic can happen. We can be free of the tyranny of taking everything personally: rejection, abandonment, criticism. When it is not personal, when our right to inhabit the planet is not at stake, then we can play with life as a metaphor, as a dream. We can let life be our teacher instead of our jailer.
If it’s not personal,
these unreturned phone calls from friends,
these unreciprocated invitations,
this lack of feedback –
all this seeming rejection –
if it’s not personal
then I don’t have to make any final decisions
about my value as a human being
and the limits of what’s possible for me.
If my pain is not personal,
then my lower-middle-class alcoholic upbringing
hasn’t put me in a bubble that suffocates my dreams.
My future is mine to create,
and the best may still be yet to come.
If this doubt and fear isn’t my personal pathology,
then I don’t have to worry about any pattern repeating endlessly
for the rest of my life.
If it’s not personal,
then this too shall pass.
The seven years of drought will be replaced by seven years of bounty.
If it’s not personal,
then it’s not personal.
It’s not stuck to my personality.
I don’t have to die to escape it.
If it’s not personal,
then it isn’t following me,
stalking me,
like some comet’s tail
or my shadow,
Jungian or solar.
If it’s not personal,
then I can stay alive
instead of drowning in the Slough of Despair.
I will be ready when the ship comes,
or the fishing boat,
or the yacht,
or when I find shore
and shelter
and coconuts to eat and drink.
If it’s not personal,
then all I have to do is survive
with as much joy as I can muster,
or, rather,
as much joy as I can let curl around my feet
or purr into my ear.
If it’s not personal,
then what am I supposed to learn from this ache in my belly?
Aye, there’s the rub.
Once I start looking for “supposed to’s”
I am trapped again in taking it personally.
So, if I don’t take my pain and doubt personally,
what is my next step?
I will get back to basics.
I will live one day at a time.
I will ask myself how I feel and what I want.
I will take a breath and take the next step right in front of me.
I will pay attention to the inklings and nudges I am feeling.
I surrender now to this mysterious vortex of doubt.
I let the howling swirl take me where it will –
perhaps into a shaman’s death,
again,
and yet again.
Amen.