like the violin

At school we have this great little thing called basgrupp. We're divided into small groups of four or five students who meet with a teacher regularly to talk about, well anything, but mostly this fall about how we are coping (or not) with the huge amount of school work. We write journals and send them to the teacher in advance so she knows what we need to talk about in the group.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about self-esteem and self-confidence. Suddenly our teacher looked at me and said:
- What are you good at?
- I'm good at singing! I said.
And I felt so happy that I had to smile. It was like a gift, like candy, something warm that melted in my mouth, to realise that I had said it out loud, with pride, and not only that: I had said it instinctively, withouth thinking, like something fixed, unstoppable. It was the first thing I thought of.
- And more?
- Uhhm ... Lindy hop!
- And more?
- I'm good at hugging.
- And more?
- Uuuuuhhh ... (Now it became more difficult; I felt more careful, fumbling in a way; trying to say things slower, as if there would be someone or something protesting if I sounded to sure of myself.)
- I'm good at making collages. Making nice notes at lectures ... Paper stuff in general.
- And more?
- Well I - languages, I mean I speak French ... and I guess I'm rather good at English, too ...
- And more?
- ... Uuuuhhmm ... I don't know anything else ... Photographing, maybe, maybe I'm good at that, I don't know ...
- See? You are good at an amazing amount of things, you should be proud of all this!

And she is right. I should be proud! It was such an interesting exercise, to have to spontaneously name all the things I'm good at. The things I love. Because this is obvious; all the things that came to mind are things I love, truly LOVE to do. I should be able to say this without being ashamed: I am good at these things.

There are so many of them, too! I didn't see that as clearly, before. But maybe the part of me that I am the most proud of (apart from my strong and unruly ability to love) is that I'm interested in so many things. (This typography book I have found, have I told you about it? It's beautiful.)

The problem is that in everything I do, I want to be among the best (or I should say, I sometimes want to be the best. I am not always like that). In collages I sometimes feel the need to compete with illustrators, people who draw and collage for a living, people who went to art school. Same in photography. In English I want to be as good as native speakers! (Yes, I can hear how ridiculous this sounds, but I never said there was any logic to my feelings.) And so on and so on.

I'm working on letting go of all these demands, everything I require from myself. I've gotten far from where I started, but there are still things to deal with - of course. Until I'm there I'll just to my best to enjoy all the things I love.

Joanna Newsom | Cosmia