Scenes from the Journey: If wishes were horses . . .

Sunday, March 12, 2017

If wishes were horses . . .

"I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate" came to mind last week. I don't know any other words to this old song (from the '20s, surely?), or the tune. But it reminded me of how we spend our lives (how I spend my life) wishing we had something—a talent, a trait—that someone else has.

I wish I could play the flute as beautifully as my sister Sari played it. And while I'm there I wish I shared her enthusiasm—for life, for music, for people.

I wish I could improvise like my sister Mary (though her instrument is the guitar and I have NO desire to go there; but I'd like to be able to do on the piano what she does on the guitar).

Despite the title of the song (Sister Kate), my envioius wishing isn't limited to siblings. I wish I was a photographer like a friend who, in his retirement, takes stunning pictures of foreign flora and fauna—a skill that meshes well with his love of travel. Or a jazz pianist like my neighbour.

This list could become a lot longer if I allowed myself to continue. I wish. I wish.

Another facet of this notion (does a notion have facets?) is this: I have always in the past imagined that all the people I know can do everything that I do PLUS all the things that they do well themselves. This inevitably put me in an inferior position. What I did or could do was never enough, because those other people could do all that in addition to, say, being a Real Artist or, say, being a respected therapist or a professional landscape architect. Or, to move away from trades and professions, they might be excellent mothers or have eidetic memories.

In any case, I was always, in my mind, left in the shade. This came to light years ago when I was whining to a therapist that everyone but me was a good housekeeper. She asked what made me think that. I pointed out her own housekeeping skills (her office was in her house). I said that the living room, which was the waiting room, was always spotless. She said, "Have you seen the rest of the house?" And of course I hadn't.

This was a very good reminder to me. Who knew what dust bunnies lurked beneath the furniture in her other rooms? Relatives of the bunnies in my house that I was so ashamed of.

I slowly began to acknowledge, in the face of this, the skills and talents that I have (or at least once had) that others did not have, despite their own worthy talents. In other words, each of us was differently gifted.

And I never again imagined that others started with a base of my talents and then piled their own on top of that. This simple shift in my thinking got rid of a mountain of guilt!

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