Balmy Perfection

Gosh, I’d like to start writing, but I have a brand-new journal with a brand-new first page, and it’s all clean and new and smooth.

I can’t ruin it. 

I send a weekly newsletter about writing, creativity, and making space between who we are and who we tell ourselves we are. This week was about the pressure of the first page, the new step, the beginning of the beginning. Who needs that kind of pressure?

I’d love to. I really would.  Let me wait until I have the perfect first line for the book I’m going to write.

The night was balmy.

Dang it. 

That first-page anxiety is a killer. What do you write? How do you compete with the perfection of nothing? Of possibility? What if I make a mistake? Do I set the book on fire? Bury it in the yard? So much pressure. Maybe I’ll just put it away.

You could leave the first page blank, like a blanket for your writing to snuggle under.

You could use the first page as a warning to potential snoopers, disavowing any responsibility for hurt feelings, ending spoilers for blockbuster movies and potentially gross brownie recipes.

You could use it as a pen practice-r, to see if it’s working or if you like it on that particular paper.

You could use it to set an intention: what this book will be for, what you’d like to get out of it, who you’d like to be by the end.  

You could use it as a tracker to see how many days in a row you’ve written, exercised, or avoided exercise.

You could put a positive message on that page: that any writing is good writing, that you’ve already won, that you look great in those jeans. 

Every time you open your book and look at that page, you dismantle another block of perfection, of judgment, of all that noise in your head that tells you how things are supposed to be. This is your book, your writing; this is the first page of whatever adventure that holds. It’s OK  if it’s messy; if you’re lucky, the whole ride will be messy. Those are the best kinds of rides. You should end up with one shoe missing and your phone in a river.

In fact, go ahead and screw that page up if you want. It only gets better from there. 

These are messages that are going all the way down to your subconscious, the board of directors who send up a flare of discomfort when you try to rock a new sailor hat. Remember the cowboy boot fashion meltdown of 2002? They do. They want you to hold onto old shame, old fears, but they make it seem like it’s about practicality, reason, not making a mistake in a book. Your accordion solo didn’t go as planned in the third grade; how dare you entertain silly dreams of making Simon Cowell weep on America’s Got Talent?  I don’t see the Spelling Bee in junior high stopping me from going for that job I want, but that happens too. The noise gets around. 

However it looks is perfect; however you write is perfect, because however you make your way is perfect. Up and down, and crossed out and misspelled. The mistakes you will undoubtedly make, the feelings you will probably hurt, the tumbles you will definitely take will be things to write about, grow on, and shift into. 

Embrace it, rewrite it, turn the page, and try again. Show yourself there is no perfection, there is no failure, there is nothing but a turning page, another day, and a book you can close on noise that only echoes old fears you have already survived.   

Defy the expectation that each page will pour itself out without a misstep, without a line out of place, and face the book with acceptance of your writing, of yourself, and that self-love goes back to the voices, back to the board of directors with a memo that says they are not the final say. They can be loud, but you can be so much louder. 

The night is balmy. Bust out that sailor hat.