Self-doubt

Paula’s last day here was a day of errands and questions. Driving through the darkening dusk to Sue’s house for another beautifully simple dinner prepared with skill and thoughtfulness, I confessed I am never content with anything I do: from cooking to child-rearing, to writing and photography, I look at my efforts and say I should have worked harder, stayed longer, quit sooner, or waited another five minutes. I chose the wrong angle, I was too tight, too loose. The opening sentence set the wrong tone, I didn’t bring it together in the end. The ways to fail are infinite. I always want to do better than I did.

“Every artist has self-doubt,” Paula said kindly, including me in the category ‘artist.’ “I think self-doubt is necessary. It motivates us to keep starting again, to try something else, to get up in the morning and learn something.”

I said I can never do justice to all that flows my way, not to the beauty and not to the suffering. We took the conversation into Sue’s house, and over Sue’s panko-breaded rockfish with a flourish of fresh cilantro, Paula concluded, “Self-doubt makes us alive.”

“Yes,” Sue mused, “because when you’re dead, it’s not there.”

Laughter. I think that’s it, for me. Standing back with enough distance to laugh at myself makes self-doubt bearable. I love what Paula says about self-doubt and artists, and I thank Sue for the reminder that we are the dear old earnest fools we are, at sea in a sieve, but only for a little while.