It’s about time someone redefined perfection.

A couple of weeks ago, I was ambushed by the Worst Stomach Flu Ever (W-S-F-E).  Not that I’m an expert, but this, as my long-ago chemistry teacher would have said, was ungood to the unharmonious tune of seven pounds in eight hours.  When the enemy had retreated and I was ready to contemplate something more than an ice chip and death, I discovered that my taste had swerved dangerously in the direction of the very old (or the very young), i.e. toward pabulum.  Moving on to applesauce was an event (which gives a feel for the dim state of things).

In a word, life was bland.

The thing is, there’s a place for blandness.  After being traumatized – whether by the economy or by a virus that dumps you into a bog of Kevorkianesque hallucinations – excitement is officially off the wish list.

But blandness is a transient taste.  Pretty soon, boredom sets in – the desperation for at least a little butter and a few raisins in the cream of wheat; the need for challenge and a little suspense.  The paradox lies in the fact that feeling adequate, for many women, depends on having all their ducks in a row, everything apparently under control, that is, it depends upon reliably ensuring that life is bland!

That’s one problem with seeking seamless “perfection”.  Another is that life is so patently not under the control of mere mortals.  Not only is perfection boring, it’s also unachievable!  How like us to set a standard of adequacy that by definition proves we aren’t.

So please put me on record as saying that bland perfection is anything but the ideal.

By way of illustration, a conversation with my thirty-something piano instructor comes to mind.  Richard (alternatively dubbed Herr Grump by yours truly, because he is one) is a true lover of musical sound – of every imaginable kind.  One night after a lesson, we had stopped to talk in the parking lot.  Somehow, in the darkness, sound seemed to travel from farther away and with more clarity.  Rain on broad, fibrous magnolia leaves, tires on wet pavement, a horn, and then the whistle and rhythm of a passing train.  Richard paused for a minute, listening – and making sure that I was listening, too.   All of those sounds together – that is music, he stated, in his style that brooks no argument.

Not that I disagreed in the slightest.

Another night, I came into the lesson very excited about having pulled up the music to Franz Liszt’s Liebestraum #3 in A flat, which I had fallen in love with when WGUC had played it.  Richard was uninterested.  It’s bubblegum, he said, with some disdain.  It is discord that makes it music. This lovely ephemeral cloud of sound was entirely harmonious.  To Richard, this was not music.  Even the discord inherent in my own rendering of the piece did not relieve him; I declared him hopelessly cantankerous and put it away.

So here’s the point.  The alleged perfection of children who go to bed on time, turn in their homework and remember their lunches; of shopping that gets done in advance of the week and dinners that are creative and served on time; of money in abundance; of calm relationships with no conflict – that’s not my idea of perfection, and what’s more important, no matter how hard you try,  it’s not sustainable.

It’s the motley, arrhythmic, discordant collection of moments that make up a day that comprises true perfection – or, as a TV star gone bag lady on NBC’s “ER” said upon entering the hospital, “Every day brings its own surprises.”  Would the sounds of that evening have been more beautiful without the slam of our car doors?  Would your child really be more perfect if she hadn’t cut her own hair?

To me, the answer is no.  It is the whole that is beautiful – and that includes the curiosity of an enterprising child, not just the straightness of her bangs.  It includes her pride (or tears) when she looks in the mirror – as well as your own dismay (and secret smile).

Moments of stratospheric bliss and abysmal chagrin; that’s the mess that makes up life. And if we’re lucky, we get a touch of Liszt and only a very little W-S-F-E in the mix.