I’ve been failing a lot lately. And I mean a lot. In a lot of things. Like, way more than this confident, sometimes cocky, guy is accustomed to.
This isn’t me. Or at least it hasn’t been. I am accustomed to figuring it out without a ton of the fucking around. I learn fast, faster than most I daresay (See? There’s that cockiness).
As one failure falls flat in a heap upon the next, I am starting to understand that, as one of my closest confidantes likes to say: “all the really juicy growth lies in failure.”
I am writing this as a loaf of pumpkinseed rye sits baking in my oven. Like my other failrures, it has fallen flat. Over-proofed. Going to be leaden. I didn’t realize how important it is to: 1) have the oven preheated. And I mean really preheated; 2) how vital it is to not overproof rye doughs, whose gluten is weak and can collapse easily if left too long; and, 3) how without steam and a very hot oven, you get a crappy bounce when the dough goes in.
So I’ll pick myself up, stare at that crappy loaf a while, then start again tonight. The bread takes the better part of 18 hours to make.
I’ve had dozens of such failures lately. My snowball cookies half melted, and look more like Frosty’s rotting corpse than a pretty round snowball. (They taste fine, tho) I cooked a batch of venison risotto that was way too acidic; easily fixed the next time, but still. I should be better.
And I’ve begun cross country skiing lessons. This, frankly, scared the hell out of me. I’ve heard horror stories about how difficult it is to learn to cross country ski, but I reckoned that since I live in (normally) snowy Minnesota, I ought to learn. Plus, with bum knees it’s easier than running, and I might turn out to be good at it, who knows?
The first lesson was a lesson in falling. Literally. Balance is super tough, too, as was a disconcerting feeling of going faster than I can control. I was still sore from the 90-minute workout two days later.
I am trying to do more squats and deadlifts, too. My friend Sarah has helped coach me through those forms, but these are dynamic exercises that ask a lot of your body. I am doing pitiful weight compared to what I once did in college. But then, I am not in college anymore. I know this, but my body doesn’t.
And can we talk about food photography? I knew I would be worse than Holly at this, after all, she’s smart and talented and did it for years. But the fail rate here is depressing. I spend three times as much time setting up a shot, shoot it a zillion times from all angles with light, etc., or in what natural light we have in Minnesota in December, only to look at the shots afterwards and decide that bleh, only the overhead in natural light is any good.
And I won’t even go into the personal stuff. Yeah, I know, big surprise from Mr. Open-a-Vein, right? But not today.
All of this is not progress. Or is it?
I’ve torn my life into bits this year. Left a long-term relationship. A house. A state. A region. My cat died. My brother died. My uncle died. I was homeless for seven months. I chose the hard way on purpose: I went to Mexico to speak only Spanish for several weeks. I worked on a fishing boat in Alaska. I worked as a chef at a hunting camp doing three meals a day, seven days a week. I bought a house, for the first time. And then I had to furnish it. I’m still furnishing it. (There’s that vein…)
Everyone tells me to give myself a break, but it’s not easy. I have never been a perfectionist, but I do hold myself to high standards. Over-proofed breads, bad photography, middling results with new recipes, sore muscles, and, I’ll be prefectly honest, the aloneness of it all, have taken their toll.
But I can see light, if only weakly. My friend is right about “juicy” growth. My next loaf of pumpkinseed rye came out nicely. My next ski lesson was better than the last. I finally took an artificial light photo I don’t hate. My house is slowly becoming a home. I’m getting over my personal failures, at least a little.
As this new year begins, embrace failure. Or maybe a better way to put it is to embrace new things, even if they scare you. Even if you fail. A lot. Sometimes a thing can’t happen now, but the painful now sets you up for success in the then. Just know that that “then” may be years down the road. And understand it might never come.
If you fail and fail and fail at something, maybe then you know that that thing isn’t for you. It happens. But at the same time, if that thing is something you want to do — and I mean really want to do — you will improve. You’ll get better.
And that feeling, even if it’s small, like fixing a messed-up loaf of rye bread, falling less on the snow, or figuring out how to be less awkward talking to people you’re attracted to, feels like winning. I’ll take my wins where I can get them. At least I am trying to.
Growth sets roots in the debris of our failures. And really juicy growth requires a rich bed of that personal debris to become strong and lasting. Mine is thick and deep, like the black earth of the Minnesota soil I live on. Who knows what might grow there in time?
I applaud your pioneering spirit.
I kept thinking of my father's personal mantra while I was reading this: Learn something new every day, especially from your failures. Dad was in some ways a perfectionist; he was always looking for ways to do something better. That didn't mean that he was OCD about it; once something was done, it was done. But next time he'd do it better. Sounds like you share his philosophy.