Cindy on February 4th, 2009
“The imagination needs moodling — long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering.” — Brenda Ueland
Right now, the landscape outside my office window looks more like the moon than southeast Michigan. Even when the sun shines, my seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is always at its worst in February. Meanwhile, several of my friends are heading to Florida this week. And I’m not.
When SAD strikes, I find it hard to concentrate or to get motivated. I get crabby and impatient and fed-up with people I’m usually fond of. But after years of battling it, I’ve learned that the best antidote — barring a trip to Bermuda — is a long afternoon of guilt-free puttering.
Cheaper than air fare or psychotherapy, puttering lets your mind wander while your body hangs out around the house. And unlike fall housecleaning, which involves physical energy and high-powered appliances, puttering puts you in a Zen-like state of bliss. Not to be confused with slacking, fidgeting, fiddling, or piddling, puttering is good for mental health. In fact, Brenda Ueland, author of the classic If You Want to Write, insisted that long periods of “moodling” (her word for puttering) are essential to the creative process.
Sadly, ours is a goal-directed, work-till-you-drop culture. And since most of us like to boast about how terribly busy we are, puttering is never easy to pull off.
For those who practice on the sly, like I do, puttering styles are varied and highly personal.
Puttering can be the act of sorting through a box of college textbooks in the basement; tinkering under the hood of an old Chevy; or rearranging things on a shelf while you listen to jazz on the stereo. In other words, puttering is a way of clarifying life’s myriad details, especially when it’s done with reverence for the objects at hand. It’s an opportunity to reconsider what we most enjoy in our homes, and to make a mental list of what we’d like to edit later.
Feeling sluggish and blue last week, I decided to putter in the kitchen. Taking inventory of my good china, I lost myself in happy memories of the two grandmothers who had actually used all the serving pieces for holiday dinners. I marveled, too, at how both sets of dishes have survived several moves and kitchen renovations – and somehow outlived their original owners.
If puttering still sounds like a chore you’ve postponed, it’s only because you haven’t found a method that cheers or relaxes you. One man’s notion of drudgery, after all, can be another’s idea of soul craft.
“I can’t explain it, but I enjoy doing dishes,” writes Thomas Moore, a former Catholic monk and author of Care of the Soul. “I’ve had an automatic dishwasher in my home for over a year, and I have never used it. What appeals to me, I think, is the reverie induced by going through the ritual of washing, rinsing, and drying.” Thomas Moore can come over to my house and wash dishes any time he visits Detroit (especially if his visit coincides with another power failure). Meanwhile, I’ll keep loading my dishwasher.
Still, there’s merit in savoring the ordinary tasks of daily living.
A lot of us spend our lives reaching for lofty goals, or at least trying to look productive 24/7. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if so many of us weren’t scratching our heads and wondering what’s missing even after we’ve won all the trophies. (Consider all those baby-boomer executives who can’t wait to retire.)
“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?” observed Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts. Charlie Brown, after all, was pretty good at puttering. — Cindy La Ferle
– Parts of this essay are excerpted from Writing Home –
Cindy on January 27th, 2009
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
It’s just a simple garden plaque, but I knew I had to order one as soon as I saw it in a mail-order catalog. Handcrafted from terra cotta, it announces in plain bold letters: EMBRACE IMPERFECTION.
I bought it to hang on a brick wall near the patio. But somehow, it looked out of place with the other ceramic plaques my husband and I had collected from summer art fairs. It was a little too perfect and needed some crafty touches — a few dabs of paint here and there to make it look old and weathered. Never one to argue, my artistic husband gave the plaque a nice patina and hung it where I would see it from the garden room window.
Now that I think about it, I should have ordered several to post all over the house. I’ve battled perfectionism most of my life, and while it has served me well at times, it usually makes me miserable. Sometimes it makes others miserable, too.
Perfectionism is the snarky little gremlin hissing in my ear when the floors are littered with muddy shoes and old newspapers. It tells me I’m a lousy housekeeper and that I shouldn’t even think of entertaining company until everything is spotless. It also likes to remind me that my table settings never look like the ones in Martha Stewart Living, anyway.
Perfectionism is the critical woman looking back at me in the mirror — the woman who thinks I need to lose more weight, or that the shirt I am wearing wasn’t ironed properly. She seems to suggest that I’ll never be as cool as Jamie Lee Curtis or Lauren Hutton.
Perfectionism is the imaginary editor looking over my shoulder while I type. She nags when my sentences are weak, and tells me that I’m not really a writer. If I really slip and misspell a word or dangle a modifier in one of my columns or articles, I brood for hours, convinced that my readers have lost faith in me, and that every English teacher in Oakland County has ripped my offending piece from the paper and waved it in front of her class. My imaginary editor never lets me forget.
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,” warns novelist Anne Lamott. “It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”
The crazy thing is, I know better. And oddly enough, I’ve always appreciated quirkiness in other people and the things they own. Distressed furniture, thrift-shop finds, overgrown cottage gardens, non-pedigree pets, freckles, and crooked smiles intrigue me. The people whose style I admire tend to be rule-breakers or different drummers. Even the saints were social misfits.
Years ago, on a photo shoot for a travel magazine, I learned that early Mennonite quilters stitched a “humility patch” –- a deliberate mistake — into each of their prized quilts. The patch served to remind the circle of quilters that only God can create a flawless masterpiece. When I can’t seem to get things right, I try to remember those intricately patterned quilts.
Like most card-carrying perfectionists, I began my career as a people-pleaser. As a kid I was told that if you can’t do something exactly right, it’s not worth doing at all. Looking for approval from teachers, I never colored outside the lines. As a teenager, I dressed to please my peers but avoided upsetting my parents. Finally, by the time I reached my forties, I realized the pursuit of perfection was futile, not to mention exhausting.
I know, now, that to embrace imperfection is to let go of the need to be right, or look good, all of the time. It’s never easy. But as Anne Lamott advises, I keep telling myself that messes and mistakes are proof that real life is being lived here. And even when I can’t fully embrace imperfection, as my garden plaque urges, I try, at least, to shake hands with it. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on January 2nd, 2009
“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
Late last summer, my husband and I fulfilled our longtime dream of purchasing a Frank Lloyd Wright home in southwest Michigan, where we hope to retire in a few years. Like most homes that need repair or renovation, this one has its own lessons to teach. You can read my new essay online in The Christian Science Monitor. –CL
–Photo of the Carl Schultz house by Doug La Ferle–
