Fortitude

My first experience with hard-work was not sitting on the lifeguard stand in 1992, swinging a whistle around my finger while scanning Lake Pontchartrain's horizon for lightening.

I thought that was work. Ha.

Fast-forward. Manhattan, circa 1995. After a month of "sizing rounders" at the midtown Gap (ex-Gap employees, you know what I mean), I got a job slinging buffalo wings and serving pitchers of beer on the Upper West Side. I lived across town in Murray Hill. The wing place was two subway trips and a five block walk away.

Getting to work was work. One can imagine the despair when, after my first ten-hour, Friday-night shift, my manager told me to marry the ketchup and breakdown the patio.

Marry the who? Breakdown the what? Huh??? Where's the busboy?

Here's what I figured out fast: I was the busboy.

I am still the busboy, a lesson that the universe serves up on a regular basis. Sometimes, it doesn't take very quickly.

This is my third central Pennsylvania winter. We've gotten plenty of the white stuff this year. Last snowstorm, I was certain that local kids would seize the opportunity to make some cash. Shoveling stoops is big business in Brooklyn.

I was determined to avoid hard weekend labor. My neighbors, I thought, were foolish to get up at 7am on a Saturday to shovel snow. (A sound I will never forget...scccrraappe...scccraaappe.)

The snow, I reasoned, was not going anywhere. Shoveling could wait a day. Or two.

And then it's Monday morning. In heels and a skirt, I frantically chip away at the snow frozen around my tires. I curse. I cry. I lose a glove in the struggle. My skin burns. I try to make a fist. I'd like to shake it at the sky. The sun is bright. Everywhere I look, icicles glint.

Ok, I say to the universe, I get your point.

My early-bird, snow-shoveling neighbors are not foolish. They have fortitude. They do what needs to get done to keep their lives in motion.

Navigate the subway. Marry the ketchup. Breakdown the patio.

And now, suck it up and shovel the snow when it falls.

I am my own busboy.

Perfection vs. Progress

A few weeks ago I ran out of heating oil on a very cold day. I'm talking single digit cold. My fiance shuffled around our apartment in a hoodie, wearing wool socks with his flip-flops. I stayed in bed, not just because it was the warmest spot in the house, but also because it was far away from the kitchen sink, chock-full of dirty dishes and a bit ripe-smelling to boot.

I felt rotten, suffocated by the weight of my shortcomings: Dust-bunnies the size of tumbleweed in every corner; nary a clean pot in which to cook; a broken tail-light on the car.

I could go on. The list is long. Like a roll of toilet paper. Jumbo size.

The urge to dwell on these imperfections is strong. Doing so is not just counterproductive. It's damaging. It's paralyzing. The wheels of progress freeze solid.

Progress. It's such a nice word. Compare it to perfection.

Really. Say them both aloud. Progress. Perfection.

Progress expands. The essess at the end can go on forever.

Perfection is pinched. It's word-wings clipped.

Could it be any clearer which is better?

I'm tired of perfection screwing up my progress, and I hope you are too.

Oh, and about that weekend without heat? The memory of my fiance sporting a hoodie and rocking wool socks with flip flops is one of this snowy winter's brightest spots yet.