The Paris Project

Paris Project: The Column

In this month's The Atlantic Monthly, Alex Beam writes about blogs and other forms of unpublished journalism: "Self-publishing is waking up in the morning, turning on your computer, and sharing your thoughts with the hypothetically limitless audience of the Internet...so many people are doing it, it's hardly worth doing at all." Bah, Mr. Beam! If so many people are doing it, then why not join them?

I am enamoured with essays, and am working on improving my essay writing skills. (Should I have written "enamoured by essays"? Dammit, this is a poor start.) I would like, someday, to have a column in a magazine. The publishing and networking that may have to happen to reach that goal will probably take some time, perhaps even many years. The writing and the joy of sharing with an audience, however, can begin now. My plan is to write one essay per month, and use this blog as a "monthly column" space one day per month. Then, at sabbatical's end, I'll have 9 or 10 essays that I can continue editing and perhaps publish on paper. Rest assured, the drivel you've come to expect here will continue on other days.

A word on your opinions: feel free to express critical comments here, or if you have lengthy feelings or ideas about my ideas or my writing, send an e-mail. I take criticism in and mull it over, and it never hurts my feelings for more than a day or two, a necessary and totally acceptable part of the process.

Today is the launching of Paris Project: The Column. Here goes.

Three Percent Short

One time I earned a ninety seven on a paper in college. Upset, I went to the professor and asked, “Why did I get those three points taken off?” Now a professor myself, I cringe when this question comes at me, at least a few times each semester. Straight A students who fret about the few points they didn’t earn are typically easy to hurt and impossible to satisfy. The professor said something about it being a very good paper and how I should be pleased with my A. The following year, when I became a teaching assistant for this professor, I realized while recording grades that he never gave perfect scores. In his classes, ninety five was a solid A, and ninety seven was an excellent A. With each set of grades, I wondered: if there are one hundred points, shouldn’t each of them be earnable? I thought so then, and I still do; now I give the occasional hundred, though he likely still doesn’t.

It’s been fifteen years since that semester, and now I’m staying up past midnight with babies instead of study groups. Since the birth of my twins four months ago, sleep has been scarce, but I recently started getting enough of the deep kind to start having dreams again, several of which have had me reliving small mistakes from the distant past. An old roommate appeared in a dream and, as she did ten years ago, said I ate toast too frequently. An old boyfriend appeared to break up with me. Another roommate left a voicemail to everyone in our household saying, “Whoever pretends to wash dishes and then puts them away – please do a better job.” In my dream as in the real past, I knew the message was for me; I left cheese on the grater that day as I rushed to leave the kitchen. The ninety seven resurfaced as well.

I rarely put stock in my dreams, but I think these are sending me a message. In each of these situations, I was very good – a top student, a solid roommate, a beloved girlfriend – but less than perfect. That my mind dredges up these situations years later suggests that my bitty failures have stuck with me over the years, perhaps even more than my successes. Becoming a mother has roused my familiar fears -- I’m desperately trying to measure up, but am doomed. It’s all or nothing, and I am nothing.

But how am I really doing as a mother? My babies are plump and getting plumper, laughing themselves silly every day, and developmentally on track. They’re washed, fed, and loved. My husband is pleased with me. I’m happy. If I could grade my mothering so far, I’d assign myself, oh, a ninety seven.

On too many days, I worry over that last three percent more than I rejoice over the ninety seven percent. I tell myself that if I could mother perfectly — if I really loved my babies – it would look like this. My full attention would be focused on the babies every moment they are awake. I would perfectly intuit what they need and would play with them, offer them toys, or let them rest. I would be at their beck and call, and would never disappoint. I would clean the house, cook meals, feed myself, and perhaps even work out, during the night while they’re asleep. I wouldn’t sleep but an hour or two every other day.

Then, on the days that seem perfect – babies are happy, I’m well-rested, and the household is harmonious -- I adjust the standard so I still can’t earn those last few points. I could have baked a pie, visited a friend, or written an article. I could matched the babies’ socks to their onesies. I could have done some extra work to salt away funds for the future therapy they’ll need to heal from the indiscernible but indelible psychic harm I am causing them everyday.

This mother’s urge to be perfect might come from our culture, or perhaps from nature. In the West, the Industrial revolution killed cottage industries, and men were forced to leave their families all day to go to work. As men’s work became increasingly dirty, both literally and metaphorically, the home was elevated as a haven from the public world. Women were the “angels of the hearth”, keepers of the morality, cleanliness, and comfort that men desperately needed to return to at the end of a day. And from nature, anthropologists say that new mothers’ excessive worrying is necessary for the survival of the species. Infancy is a dangerous time, when the littlest humans can’t direct their flailing limbs even to defend themselves. Maternal hypervigilance saves lives (someone ought to make a bumpersticker of that!).

This would be fine and good, if my worries were actually focused on my children. Of course, I do watch out for dangling miniblind cords, bad drivers, and aspirin on the floor. I also worry about ways in which my problems – my anger, impatience, unresolved childhood issues, and the like – will affect my boys. I also, unfortunately, waste a good measure of my worry thinking about myself, and how I don’t measure up. Martyr that I am, I make it seem as though it’s all about them, when really, it’s all about my desire to build my sense of self though my own effort.

The truth is that even when I’m at my best, my boys will still experience pain, loneliness, hunger, fatigue, and sadness. Sometimes I’ll even be the one who has wronged them. Life is hard, and instead of shielding them from it, I could be their guide. We can learn together how to experience pain and survive; how to be afraid and take courage; how to be wronged and forgive. If I continue striving for perfection, I’ll become a sad, angry mother, and will be alarmed when I inadvertently pass on my perfectionism to them, which will surely happen.

Grace may be perfection’s opposite. We hurt each other, but we forgive and try again. We fail ourselves, but don’t give up on ourselves. We can do this because we know we are loved – by God, our families, and ourselves. Instead of marching carefully through life like trained soldiers, grace frees us to run loose. I want to watch my boys live large, take risks, and have great adventures. I'd like to see myself do the same.

I was glad to finish graduate school and be through with grades. When I received my doctoral diploma in the mail, I held it and rejoiced that never again would someone tell me what to read or write and then tell me how well I had done it. I do enjoy creating my own reading lists and writing projects, but the grading continues. I make the scale, and can never make one hundred. (Usually I earn an A-, unless I’m washing dishes and, due to grade inflation, eke out a C).

If I could speak to the student who stood in her professor’s office asking after those three lost points, I would say, “Let the three points go. In fact, let the other ninety seven points go, too. The prize is not the grade, but what you learned.” That young woman wouldn’t have listened, but this older young woman will. The points don’t matter, not the ones I earn or the ones I fail to earn. Most college students will say that the best parts of college – friendships, romances, dorm life, and even studying -- happened outside the classroom, free from a professor’s evaluating eyes. It’s still true, years after college, that love, joy, fun, relaxation, and learning flourish in the spaces where judgment of others and judgment of ourselves are set aside, and we choose the freedom -- that was always there for the choosing -- to simply live.