Your err is my delight

"It's better to make a mistake with the full force of your being than to timidly avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit."

I once had a music director, an intimidating frightful sort of man, who told us all that if we were going to make a mistake to do it loudly.  I don't think anyone likes their errors drawing attention, let alone prideful vocalists who constantly try and outshine one another.  But you had to love the validity in his statement: how would he catch our musical mistakes if he didn't hear them?  Being one to follow an order (well, an order I view as valid, anyway) there was one rehearsal where I found myself so caught up in the spirit of the piece I failed to enter when the music score called and instead erradicated some rests and wrote myself my own solo.  I will never forget the look on the director's face as he slowly raised one eyebrow and began to purse his tight, assuming mouth.  "Well," I chimed right in, "You did say to make our mistakes loud!"  Here's a confession: very few things bring me more joy than bringing a smile to a stubborn man's lips, especially when they are mustering all their will power to stop the smile from revealing itself.  It's like winning some ongoing game against the contempt men use to mask their affection and breaking through that facade gives me an air of feminine delight.  Aha, I muse.  I win!  And then again, nothing about me has ever been quiet and that certainly includes my singing.  Once during a play rehearsal in college our director informed the other members of the cast they all needed to work on specificity, clarity, resonance, in short, being louder.  "Except for Teresa," the director confirmed.  "You need to pull back.  You're shouting."  Take it down a notch, story of my life.  Somewhere the Big G was smiling over the extremist He'd created.

Making choices requires a great deal of faith.  I knew a man, the most indecisive one I'd ever stumbled upon who used to make me dizzy with how quickly he could change his mind.  At one point, I remember looking at him with skeptical eyes and wondering if he was secretly playing a trick on me because no one could actually be that unsure of themselves.  Surely we all know deep down in the core of our gut what it is we truly desire, what we'd inconvenience ourselves for, what was the only choice worth making.  But this guy?  This guy was the most easily influenced humanoid ever to walk the streets of Hawthorne.  His faltering inevitably strengthened my resolve because I, unlike the fearful cowards, knew what I wanted.  And why wouldn't I?  To love is such a simplistic notion it's a wonder anyone can complicate it's pure beauty.

But I always underestimate the sway we have over one another.  "Will you use your whiles for good or evil?" someone once asked me.  We smiled slyly at one another and then laughed.  And remembering all that could be if these mountains did in fact move as I believed they would, the answer was too obvious to utter.