Lessons from a dress

After my latest disaster-turned-somewhat-pulled-off fiasco with my sewing project, I have noticed a very irritating aspect to my character. I hate it when I am not able to follow through with a brilliant performance. If I can't do it perfectly, or amaze everyone with my jaw-dropping skills, I don't want to do it. Period.


I am pathetic, I know....


While I was ripping through yet another botched seam, I was muttering to Eric how sewing this dress was going to be the death of me. He replied, "Why should you think you would be good at it, if you hardly ever do it?"


I laughed, but then thought about what he said. Yes, why do I think that I should automatically be good at this particular skill of sewing, when I very rarely pull my sewing machine out and practice? Why do I get frustrated with myself on the few occassions I sit down at the piano and stumble through passages of music that used to be second-nature? Why do I agonize over my poor execution of my Beehive's Sunday lesson, when I have failed to put the necessary time into it's preparation?


It brings straight to my mind the scene in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennet says to Mr. Darcy that "we are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the e'clat of a proverb." And then later in the book reproofing Mr. Darcy's excuse for unsocial graces by remarking that "my fingers do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do....but then I have always supposed it to be my own fault -- because I would not take the trouble of practicing."


The title of the book says it all.....PRIDE.


Somewhere along the line I forgot about the hard work which is prerequisite to accomplishment. I acknowledge it's importance, but for some reason think, "Well, that shouldn't apply to me."


Every once in a while we need a good solid failure, something to remind us about what is worth working towards, or fighting for.


I just know I have a masterpiece waiting in me somewhere, fighting to break free. I don't even know what that masterpiece is: in song, or word, or visual creation....I can feel it sitting there impatiently, waiting for me to discover what it is.....


I guess I should start working a little harder for it....