Take Aim

I couldn’t decide what to write about this week. There were many possibilities: Toughness in life and in my classroom. Kindness in life, and in my classroom. Busyness. Exhaustion as a status symbol, and how it’s a myth (and one we need to squelch, like, NOW). More of my thoughts on this beautifully emerging spring (buds on my neighbor’s lilac bush; determined tulips; sunlight flooding my bedroom window on a Saturday morning; birds fighting, calling, in the trees -- so much joy and love to write about there).

But each time I sat down to try to say something eloquent about any of those topics, I came up short. I got stunted by that dreaded beast: Perfection.

 If I don’t say it beautifully, I don’t want to say it at all.

If I can’t make my meaning perfectly clear, I’d rather stay silent.

Just in case I sound like a bonehead, or a hippy-dipster tripping the light, it’s probably best if I don’t write anything at all. They won’t miss me.

And maybe you won’t.

But here’s the thing: I’ll miss me. I’ll miss another chance to try to make my voice heard. I’ll miss another opportunity to aim for clarity, to aim at truth and beauty.

Perfection is not in the execution, it’s in the aim.

I have a clear memory of practicing archery during a springtime gym class in high school. Like most things in gym class (except for running, perhaps), I was not very good at archery. I was awkward and nervous in my gym shorts and knee-high socks; I probably had a crush on the boy who was in my group. I was probably feverishly intimidated by the well-coiffed girls with better gym shorts, better knee-highs. So, I remember feeling awkward, but here’s another thing I remember:

I remember how my body felt taking aim.

For some reason, that visceral memory has remained intact, while so many other high school memories have fled from me, not wanting to be recalled.

I can close my eyes, at age 32, and I am suddenly that 16-year-old again, on a breezy spring day out on the football field. My feet are spread apart, my body is twisted forward; my arms are raised, holding tight to the bow, the arrow cinched back by a firm elbow. I can feel the soft air on my face; I can even smell it -- that damp, fecund scent of new earth, of new life. The spring wind is in my hair and I am taking aim.

That’s it. That’s all I remember. I don’t remember letting go. I don’t remember how straight my arrow flew. I don’t remember whether or not I made that target.

But I remember that as I took aim, I felt strong. Present in my body. For a moment, I forgot about the boy I liked, or the girl I wasn’t but wanted to be. I was just...aiming.

Dear Reader,

I just want you to aim at something. I don’t want you to worry if you’re going to make it, or if you’re going to fail. I want to do these thing myself. I want us to do them, together.

We don’t know what is going to happen, later. You and I, we want so many things. We want, want, want them. We want them desperately. We want them perfectly.

Aim at them. That’s all we can do.

Steady your body; plant your feet firmly.

Feel the strength that you have right now.

Pull back your arrow.

Keep both eyes open.

Thank you for reading. --Beth

Over to you: First, is archery a normal thing to do in high school gym class? Second, do you remember high school clearly? Or am I the only one who has blocked a lot of those memories? Third, is there something in your life right now that you want SO badly you can taste it? That you want RIGHT RIGHT NOW? What if you were to just aim at it? What if you were to just set up the stones across the river to get a few feet closer to that thing? What would your first step be?

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