Use What You’ve Got

Perseverance, persistence, endurance���.these are qualities I recognise, from growing up, from planting my roots, getting from there to here. The best musicians, the best conductors, don���t always start at the beginning again.

I used to play the piano rather badly, as I was too nervous to make a fluent sound. And as soon as I stumbled, I would tut, and start again from the beginning. My practice periods began to sound like a bad scratch on a record, played at the wrong speed���.. I know this bit���.lets run through it quickly���.OOPS! Drat! Here we go again.

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‘Gather Ye Rosebuds’ by John William Waterhouse (1909)

I am a slow learner. I have done this sort of thing lots of times, in many situations: Thrown out books and videos, taken stitching back to the start, scrapped stories and books and ideas and whole jobs���.and taken myself back to a Beginning; as if that had some magical, cleansing significance.

Success, in one of its aspects, has been about realising that life produces more satisfying outcomes if we have the courage to take the mess we have made and continue to work within it, to finally make something satisfying. Mess we have to guddle through might be a bit frightening, or nerve-racking, but that is part of learning to handle adversity and turn it to our advantage. We make mistakes, but we can live with them, and we can use them to make something better. Not always, but some of the time. The trick is balance, which is a learned skill. I���m learning.

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