PROCESS V. PERFECTION

I HAVE MOVED from place to place inside our house today, seeking a quiet spot where I can write this. Outside, workers move ladders from window to window preparing our house for painting. Their process and mine are fairly incompatible. But I will persist…

NOT LONG AGO, when our grandsons came for a sleepover, they brought along blueberries they had picked the day before with their parents.

We got busy making a pie, working together to roll out the dough and to fill it up. Right before we put it in the oven, I pointed out that it looked kind of patchy and homely — really not up to our usual best.

And my oldest grandson said, “When I look at that pie, Nana, I don’t just see a pie. I see all that went into it. I see us picking blueberries yesterday and the long drive – over one hour each way – to the blueberry fields. And I see you putting the ingredients in the bowl and us stirring it up and rolling it out.”

At age six he had already internalized an outlook that I am still trying to embrace at 72.

Not that I don’t get a lot of practice. You can’t make children’s books without a big appreciation for process. It takes lots of research, study, reading, sketching, pondering, writing and rewriting to create work that may, in the end, look kind of patchy and homely. I’m not complaining, because despite the uncertainty of the final product, I have the compensation of spending lots of time in the seductive hum of the creative zone.  (Or is that my husband sanding on the other side of the wall? Argh.)

In any case, when I find myself feeling disappointed with the outcome of my creative endeavors, I remember that blueberry pie.

It was delicious.