On being imperfect

I was supposed to have done a reading at my quilt guild meeting yesterday. I had intentions of doing so. I suddenly remembered it in the afternoon and started looking for something to read. I considered one choice, rejected it and then was looking at the following on the subject of mistakes. Well talk about being imperfect; then I wandered off and forgot all about the meeting!

I think this is really a good excerpt from an essay in a 1999 quilt magazine.

"If I could, I would give all of us the gift of eyes that can see the creative spark that moved a quilter to begin her project; eyes that can trace the eddies of joy that propelled the quilter through the tedium of matching seams (for better or worse), of basting, of squaring, and binding; eyes that can see the quilter's effort to improve, her attention to detail, and her wish to be recognized. I wish for all of us to develop the capacity to leave judging to the judges, and to continue making quilts that are authentic expressions of who we are.

Every quilter should keep in mind one special quilt, maybe even one we made ourselves, that sang to us when we saw it, one that made it difficult to see its failure to conform to the standards ... Closer inspection makes visible the 'flaws' our enchanted eyes failed to notice at first, but by then we don't care.

Mistakes we made daily and not just in quilting. They are the surest way to learn. The fear of making an error means we stay just as we are and never improve, either as quilters or as people."

If we expect ourselves to be perfect we are expecting too much of ourselves. Only God is perfect! We should expect that of Him! (But do we?)

I have heard somewhere recently that we have 60,000 thoughts in a day. I don't know how anyone could figure that out, but it certainly would be a lot. I must have had about 10,000 thoughts about what I might say in my blog today! I guess saying that reveals one of my flaws, well several, like obsessiveness and worrying too much about what people think of me. It is risky opening my life like this. I have considered that I could talk about very safe subjects. But that would be boring and not nearly as interesting (she says redundantly). So here's to daring to be imperfect and exposed.