Imperfect

I have never had a stove that worked. Mostly the timers. None I’ve owned have had timers. This is challenging for me since I don’t keep track of my attention well. It also wouldn’t matter. A buzzer alarming of food done isn’t always a signal for me to know what the buzzer was for. I have always guessed when food is ready by learning when it’s not and when it’s too late for ready.

Growing up my dad always had a stove that was a step too complicated for me. Maybe even for him. It had a timer. And more knobs than I thought one needed. To this day I can’t turn his on. Once I tried and blew a breaker for the kitchen. The stove I have now has no timer and sits wonky. I have tried to level it but the more I level the more un level it gets.

My old house had an amazing kitchen. Mostly the cabinets. They were lovely walnut cabinets in a sunshine yellow kitchen with 1970 almond yellow appliances that when we finally had to replace them took several men to move. You couldn’t scoot them for anything. What about a stove today is lighter weight than say 60 years ago? What gets taken out? Or removed for lack of use? I always wanted to take that almond yellow stove apart and see if in fact it held rocks being heated to bake. It made amazing pizzas once I figured out how long it took to make amazing pizzas.

Before that I had a stove that was brand new. Then broke not even a week into owning it. I never used the oven again. We moved. I cooked on a pizza rotating cooker or the microwave. I can make amazing meals in a microwave.

Before this I had the tiniest stove and oven one could ever imagine next to that kids one that makes brownies with a light bulb. Easy bake. The easy bake. This little stove reminded me of an easy bake. It had to be lit with a match to ignite the oven. It exploded back into your face if you held the gas on to long without igniting right away. I was scared to death of this oven. A pizza didn’t fit in it. Neither did a 9×13 pan. That’s how small it was. My life was tiny pizzas and smaller pans of brownies and scorched eyebrows.

Before that my dad cooked and baked for my life. He could really mess up a kitchen. Music blaring loudly and flour flying everywhere. It seemed to be somewhere he could let go. And out came cake. For me when I let go, give in, I am giving up and expect chaos to ensue. I’m learning I just might get cake. That messes and ease of life can give you cake. Is it perfect?

I can’t do perfect. Who can? My piano teacher told me perfect practice is the only way to become perfect. So? I rarely practiced. It’s unachievable. And unnecessary. I imagine that some music pieces were even written out of imperfection. A missed note or beat to present a different way to make the note or beat. Better? No different. Mozart didn’t write perfect music, just beautiful music. I don’t play it perfectly, I just play it. I read what was written and play. Perfect. Never. I would have had to practice my entire life. And I don’t like to practice for perfection. I’m just a little faultier than that.

I’m exhausted with any attempt I have made to read the news. I do daily right now to see if there are any new rules. Not knowing the rules doesn’t give you no speeding ticket. They project. The models. The people who’s job it is to project with models. Input numbers to bring out more or less. How could they even work? Who are these people? Top world scientists, the greatest minds full of projections and assumptions. Do they feel proud to be right? Do they get a bonus? Are they scorned for numbers being less? That’s a win right? For our top scientists to be wrong.

I am remote learning. In the most remote places I can find to teach right now. I can’t think of all the people who are doing it better than me. The people who wake daily and plug in and connect and whip out perfect little learners before their coffee. I have to have my coffee first. I’m not going for perfect today or any day. It was expected of me for too many years. I almost feel like imperfection is a goal. It’s attainable and once accomplished can feel like accomplishment. I have imperfect kids. I am imperfect. We live and love in an imperfect world while making imperfect decisions to learn to be a little less imperfect but not perfect. It’s all I have got. Imperfect.

Do what works for you. It can’t work for everyone. I have basic communication with the kids teachers to let them know they are still just as imperfect. They write them letters and draw them pictures and we share a few photos of places they go. If I could do more I would. I’m a single and my coffee shop is closed almost all day. I would need more coffee. It’s open only a few hours a day starting this week and the line blocks traffic all the way to my apartment. Maybe I could pack my kids in the car and we could do math while we wait for coffee. I think not.

I’m planning to mess up my kitchen really good today. I want to make cheesecake. I’ve never made cheesecake. My dad always tried. He was always looking for it to come out perfect. His perfect cheese cakes were always cracked, crumbled, once a puddle like substance in the middle that was like a cheese pudding. Gross. They were always delicious. It was his stove. He had too many knobs and buttons to make it tell him what was what. He liked this challenge. He liked the top to be one way and the oven to be another. He liked too many burners with too many things too clean when he forgot he was cooking. The stove was always scorched with various attempts at sauces and mixes and he just didn’t care. He just wanted to make cake. When life is hard, which is always, make a really hard cake. The harder the better. I imagine it showed him no matter the effort and the fancy stove you still get an imperfect perfect cracked cheesecake. And a big mess.

Imperfect-not perfect; faulty or incomplete.