When I was in the 10th grade, I took a speech class. I was very nervous. Extremely nervous, which seemed stupid because I had been in harder classes before. I had stood up and given book presentations in English class before and did fine. I had starred in school plays, and hogged the stage in the school musical performances. And don't get me started on ballet. My mother said that when I was young, I might not have a clue about what dance steps I should be doing on recital night, but I carried myself like I knew what I was doing so even when I was wrong, I just looked like it was part of the choreography. The dance teacher used to use me as an example for the really good ballerinas in my class. He would say that I didn't have the talent that the other girls did- the thin, taller ones- but he said I carried myself like I knew what I was doing and that confidence was appealing. After ballet ended for me when I got boobs (it that word allowed on a professional website?), it wasn't long before I ended up in the speech class.
For my expert speech, I chose to give a make-over to Metta the exchange student from Norway. As a sophomore, I knew make up, in the I-read-17-Magazine kind of way. It was the 1970's and I was good with the dramatic three-shades of eye-shadow thing. You could say I was a make-up expert, if glam rock was your thing.
I did the entire speech to a dead audience. It was frigid. It was painful. It was like opening up the freezer and burning a layer of skin off my face. Although at the time, the words lacked the same meaning as they have to me today, I vowed I would never subject myself to that experience again. In my 10th grade mind, the thought went more like this: That was terrifying and awful. I'll never do that again.
And I didn't. For years. Now, I got up and spoke lots of times to lots of different groups. But not in the same way, talking about something I was passionate about and something I was a self-proclaimed expert in.
I wish now that the teacher could have scene my brilliance and pulled me aside to encourage me to try again, this time with a greater eye on what this audience needed to hear that I was uniquely poised to tell them. Or, she could have shared her story of hearing a fabulous speaker talk about his first failed speech. Or anything that would have let me know I actually had some talent in public speaking. I assumed I didn't have much and moved onto art that next year.
After a year of art and feeling mediocre in the first real art class I'd ever taken, I moved on to concentrate on Honors English, but knew I was never as good at the students who got into Stanford. Then, in college, I followed up my high school introductory class in psychology, only to hit Freud who ruined the whole subject for me. The class in college had so many students, I never got close to the teacher, and even if I could have. I wouldn't have known how to put into words the concept "I loved this subject so much the first time I heard a lecture in it in high school. How come I hate it so much after having to learn about Freud and the guy with the dogs (Pavlov)?"
I tried to learn computers at UW, but knew so little I signed up for computer science 101. I didn't know that if you wanted to use the software, you took classes in the business school Surviving that first semester class filled with future programmers of America left me frozen about computing. So I changed majors.
The writing instructor was so awful, I couldn't write for years. I wrote about fake stuff that I barely cared about just to get good grades.
I stopped sewing when my first dress turned out only so-so.
What I didn't know is that the things you love take time. The first time I was a hostess I sucked. With the things we love most, it is terribly painful to watch ourselves a drift and inept. We hold the master's level of excellence in our genes, and must grow through the baby steps. I wish I had encountered wiser teachers with an eye for what I should try more of. But that places must blame on other people, which isn't helpful.
What I know now that I didn't know then, it that if I loved a subject at the beginning, I should give it a few more tries before I'm convinced that it is not for me. If we love something it often times kills us to be terrible at first. We must find our way into the mastery. Humor will help. It feels yucky to work through the ugly duckling stage. Be kind with yourself. Same things just take practice to become great. Awful first tries don't mean give up and let it die. All great things have a feeble, beginner's side. Keep trying.
Don't let ugly first steps keep you apart from doing what you love.
That's my advice if I have a stump to pump my chest on.
Recent Comments