I’m Not Very Good at Anything

I won first place for a story I wrote in third grade, about the pepper tree in my front yard. My great-grandfather planted the tree as a young man, when he built the house for his wife, who was brimming at the arrival of their first child. A century and a smidgen later, the tree was enormous. Aromatic, black peppercorns the size of raisins, covered the ground and burst with spicy redolence when they were crunched underfoot. The trunk was solid, stout, and knotted, boasting several strong, gnarled branches that had browned and hardened with the test of time. The kernels swayed in bunches from the younger, supple, weepy stalks that billowed with millions of emerald fronds, adjoining mid-rib in fluttering geometric arrangements. On dreamy afternoons nestled in the branches, it was easy to believe the gently swooshing branches would lift the roots out of the ground, and tucked in snugly, I would be whisked away to wage fantastical, far-off adventures in lands only recounted by tales of fantasy. My tree was the perfect spot for a ten-year-old to hide from the world, while imagining and creating millions more. 

The 117 year-old house and tree, which once sat in the humble acreage next to a craftsman piano workshop miles from the edge of town, had seen the urban jungle grow and flourish around the tiny fenced-off plot. Liquor stores and nail salons changed hands in ways I did not understand as a child, and my mother lost moths of sleep agonizing over reports of local crime and the potential moment our worlds could be torn to shreds. Flippant to my mother's anxiety, I often climbed up my tree and out onto the bolstered, heavily foliaged branches growing over the tall fence and shaded the sidewalk on the other side. I eavesdropped on the passing pedestrians, learning key phrases in foreign languages. I imagined what their lives were like between the fragments I plucked from their fleeting conversations. Then, I transported back in time, through the thick leaves to sit in the unfinished lot, surrounded by the raw materials of his legacy, and converse with my young ancestor about the present landscape. 

Mr. Brewer, my third grade and immortally favorite teacher, had just experienced the loss of his own grandfather. I wrote, illustrated, and bound the story in cardboard and shelving paper for him, when the substitute teacher finally submitted to each student's indignant demands for information about Mr. Brewer's absence. Upon returning to work, he read the story and enthusiastically submitted the time-thwarting tale into the upcoming K-12 county creative writing competition. Mr. Brewer was thrilled, but not surprised when I won. He proudly accompanied me to the award ceremony and project showcase at the county fair. I beamed, at first, accepting the blue ribbon for short stories in my grade. I had been chosen as the best author of all the other girls and boys my age, across five school districts! Alas, even then, my curiosity and self-deprecating inner-voice were acutely tuned sixth and seventh senses. Presently, the caveat of winning in my age group, and not overall, began to tug at my concern. 

Following the award ceremony, in a strikingly uncharacteristic display of parental clemency, I was granted liberty to the fairgrounds until it was time to gather for the fireworks, just before night fell. Before minds could be changed and caveats added, I left a trail of dust and set out to load my fists with greasy, sugary treats. Seizing the rare moments of privacy, I ducked around the adults at the entrance of the project showcase tent, to get a peek at the finalist submissions for the middle and high school level awards. After all, cooed the IV (inner-voice), one must be prepared for future challenges. From there, the trap was set. I was a sleepy princess reaching for a spindle, acting as if spellbound by the logic of the anti-conscience- casting dye on the background across the rest of my story. 

There were no sloppy eraser marks fouling the intricate artwork, advanced vocabulary, beautifully flawless cursive penmanship... each element of each submission was hopelessly superior to mine, which by comparison, was a blatant display of shortcomings. I cried then, hurt and embarrassed when I realized I couldn't compete with the higher grades. I sat there, never more grateful for solitude as I slouched forward, red-faced, blue-mouthed, and gooey-fingered on a patch of grass shielded from the rest of the word by garish canvas. 

See? You are just not very good at this. IV sneered, and I agreed. Writing was decidedly not my calling. 

Over the years I dabbled in jobs and hobbies- picking up photography, then cooking, and so on, exhausting professional and avocational options in hopes of finally finding the elusive key to unlocking my aptitude for perfection. If I received external praise, it fell on deaf ears. It is a nice thing for someone to say, I thought, but nice words depart from the satisfaction a job perfectly done. 

Besides, I have never been very good at anything. 

Smug and satiated, IV cadged deeper roots. 

The nagging, persistent, bitter little voice sustained its pattern across a lifetime of achievements and opportunities. Businesses I founded flourished, programs I facilitated reaped the expected benefits, students I taught earned accolades in their own fields, close friends lovingly raved and were sworn to secrecy over the privileged readings of my unfinished manuscripts. Thousands of unread pages, years of collecting skills like model cars, futilely and imperceptibly attempting to engineer perfection, obsessing over details I imagined would be the crux for achieving objective excellence. Then, as per usual, came the rehearsed and rehashed script. The onset of IV became familiar, like a migraine the day before a menstrual cycle. When I was nearly finished, there was no sense in going further. There was always someone else who had already achieved better by my age, tenure, level, etcetera. 

I'm just not very good at anything. 

At times when the human condition becomes a burden, I cling to the one attribute I am alway fond of; the human ability to learn, grow and change- mentally, physically, and the impact we leave on the world around us. Disallowing myself the possibility of exploration, which was a mechanism meant to protect myself from my perceived shortcomings, has done nothing to heal, but rather to enhance the personal shame and negative impact of the fear of failure. Striving merely to leave a neutral impact was not only foolish, but destructive. I do not have a copy of the story I wrote for Mr. Brewer those decades ago, and my tree and house that raised four generations of my family now rest beneath the parking lot with private access to the adjoining law-office, which occupies the two stories atop a craftsman piano repair shop. 

Although my own standards remain stringent, and the drive toward formidable success stays ingrained at my core, the critical inner-voice resonates less against more pressing desires. Rather than ultimate achievement, my motivations now swayed by pursuits to preserve cherished history, understand and articulate the perplexities of life, absorb the wisdom already imparted to the world, and impart what I can to leave the world better than I found it. Through practice, I am learning to see accomplishments through the fog of imperfection. 

To give credit to hindsight, I have aged in ways inconceivable and incomprehensible to the young girl who wasted the energy of my stolen youth worshipping and sacrificing at the altar of perfection. Now, trapped in a degenerating cage, I moil through the twisted reality in which I currently find myself, and contend to reconcile the spectrum, foul to favorable, of realities entwined in my journey up to this point, however brief or lingering. As I strain my eyes and shoulders against the harsh conditions of my overstuffed sofa and ergonomic laptop, choking down prescriptions from a pyramid of orange bottles, I have utterly lost the will to waste effort worrying about being the best. Just as the vitality drains from my physical body, so do the excuses against passionate pursuit for the pure sake of enjoyment. Particularly when the recommendation is authored by none other than my own harshest, and most enduring critic. 

Perhaps I am not very good at anything, so what?  

It is a common experience for me to discover how story unfolds as I begin to fill empty pages, though not usually when the subject is so familiar. These are among the first words I have committed to distinguishing myself as a (reforming) perfectionist and over-achiever. Having never been satisfied with the level of perfection achieved, it has never occurred to me to avow these attributes. Only after attentively untangling this snarl in my reality, through writing, have I uncovered this thread hidden within my own story. I have now written and edited around fifteen-hundred words around fifteen-thousand times, rationalizing at length, the reasons I employ to neglect my writing practice- all to discover fifteen words I did not have before. Arriving at the end of this leg of my journey, I can confidently surmise the essential reason I write, began writing, and diligently work at my craft, in exactly fifteen words:

-To quench the burning demands of my soul, evoked and impelled through prevailing situational reinforcement.  

I'm still not very good at anything, but I am getting better at it.