Procrastination

Matthew Diffee’s Rejection Collection Volume 2.is a collection of cartoons rejected by the New Yorker Magazine.  Diffee sent a questionnaire to each cartoonist in his book. He asked each to fill an empty circle to “Complete the pie chart in a way that tells us something about your life or how you think.”  Cartoonist Shaw’s pie has 11 wedges labeled “procrastination” in small type.  The Twelfth wedge says “Panic!” in large type.  This pie depicts my life.

My procrastination always comes from fear of not being good enough.  When some new project presents itself and I fear not being able to do it well, or not being able to figure out how to do it at all, I procrastinate.

This procrastination is a life-eating activity.  I have spent years not writing anything.  I haven’t written Christmas thank you letters (my passive aggressive child used to have to stay in the bedroom until those were written.)  I haven’t written letters to people I really care for and have consequently lost touch with them forever.  I haven’t written term papers, at least until the night before.  I haven’t written minutes until too many minutes have passed to remember anything accurately.  For every unwritten note, story, or term paper, I have mentally written thousands of notes, stories, or term papers.  When you spend a lot of time not writing things, you don’t have time left to do anything else.

Ten years ago, I went to Scotland to celebrate my elder sister’s 70^th birthday.  Afterwards I visited my cousin Ros and her Michael in an English village.  They picked me up at the train station, fed, housed, and entertained me.  The next day they took me back to the train station.  When I returned to Virginia I sent for a visually funny, used, out-of-print book that I loved; I intended to send it as a thank-you.  When the book came, I had qualms.  It might not amuse them, they might be offended.  For the last ten years The wretched book, with its blue and yellow cover, reproached me from atop a pile of other books in my husband’s not uncluttered house.  I sent it to Ros just this month with an actual, hand-written, inadequate, note of apology and thanks.  I expect she’s puzzled.

My procrastination is not limited to written things.  I love fooling around with wood and tools.  I love figuring out how to fix something that needs fixing in my very own way.  You can learn how to fix anything with the internet at your fingertips; but knowing how and doing are not the same thing.  I have, as a landlord, procrastinated my way to rotten wood, drooling gutters, dried out plants, and peeling paint.  The fear of not doing well, nay perfectly, can screw up any project.

I used to paint pictures.  After I did a very bad job on a painting, I stopped cold.  If I have a real determination to do anything this year, it is to start off with a flawed canvas, a leaky pen, a skewed screwdriver and do things anyway.  I will weave the abrash first.