The Elusive Quest for Perfection

Have no fear of perfection-you’ll never reach it.

Salvador Dali

Aging and perfection are at odds, I’ve found. It’s a problem on a couple of levels. First, I don’t know of anyone who has ever been able to avoid aging and second, the older I become the harder it is to achieve perfection.

The garland on the mantle has been part of autumn in our house for many years. It has worn out and been replaced a couple of times. Each year when I arrange it, it’s placed back in the same spot. A pumpkin or a branch may vary a little. Nothing dramatic. That doesn’t stop me from going back and forth about if it should be moved this way or that. Even as I look at the photo, above, I wonder if I should move the orange pumpkin. It doesn’t look quite right. All the angst about the garland on the mantle is an off shoot of my ongoing struggle for perfection. An elusive goal never to be met. Aging has only made it more difficult to achieve.

My son brought me a tiny, cut glass vase from a recent trip to France. It’s the perfect size for a small bouquet. As I have mentioned in the past, I enjoy flowers in the house and the vase is always filled with one bloom or another. This is where perfection, once again, rears its ugly head. My mother’s flower arrangements were beautiful. I tend to overwork mine until they are drooped over and begging to be put out of their misery.

My grandfather was a perfectionist. At night he would take the bills out of his wallet, smooth out any wrinkles and before he put them back he would make sure they were all facing the same direction. He often asked my grandmother to have someone in to clean the house. She refused saying, we lived in a small town and she would have to clean before the cleaning lady got there, otherwise the rumor would be that she didn’t keep a clean house. I suspected the real reason was she knew the house would never be cleaned to my grandfather’s satisfaction and she didn’t want to hear about it.

I can’t claim my tendencies toward perfection are inherited. My mother was adopted. Learned behavior, maybe? I can tell you it is a complete waste of time. Nothing, not people, places, things, experiences, are ever perfect. Age has tempered my quest for perfection, to a degree. Although, I still find myself wondering if the autumn garland would look better if I moved it a tiny bit to the left.