embrace the goofs

TABULA RASA  

I took Latin in tenth grade.  I have no idea why, but probably at my father’s behest.  I use this word generously.  The course wasn’t completely awful, I discovered my favorite phrase and philosophy:  Tabula Rasa.  A clean slate.  I abused the term generously.

Mistakes, gaffes and major embarrassments were banished from memory.  I didn’t just erase the flaw from the page, I ripped the page from the notebook, crumpled it and chucked it into the wastebasket.  I burned a journal in an attempt to exorcise its contents from my life.  Fresh page.  Clean start.  Do-over.

Of course my inner control freak would gravitate to the myth that I could wipe the slate clean and begin again.  The control freak wants to believe in flawlessness, she fixates on unattainable perfection.  Poor thing doesn’t know any better.  She’s a precocious child in need good parenting, validating her is akin to getting a six-year-old drunk and unleashing her in Toys R Us™.   It’s bananas, and obviously irresponsible.

The mistakes are the lessons and every experience makes an indelible impression.  You can’t ever really wipe the slate clean, there’s always a ghostly residue of what came before.  But there is beauty in the goofs and the gaffes.  I am learning to embrace them.

I love the photo above because it reminds me that every  scribble and smudge are valid, they are what make the image beautiful.