I learned early from stories, movies, and the news that certain people are born with remarkable skills. My interests were in art, dancing, and music and I quickly learned I was traveling in a remarkable direction but a remarkably negative direction from normal in all three.

Dancing; I was swayback, my belly hung out, and I had a great case of pigeon toes instead of turn out.

Music; I joined a Baptist children’s chior and the preacher’s wife said, “The choir is suddenly very off tune,” she couldn’t get us back on and she couldn’t understand why. I explained it to her afterwards. She didn’t disagree but when I said, “It’s okay, I won’t come back,” she knew my musical offerings to God were more important than her ego in front of the congregation. I got to keep singing.

Art; my Mom taught art skills to my Girl Scout troop for years.  I could tell I wasn’t catching on and I could see by my mother’s demeanor she agreed. Later I was even fired as a florist. The shop couldn’t sell my creations with their “awful” color combinations and you should have heard the art students laugh in college. I laughed too because again and again after being taught a new concept it was obvious my work was a perfect example of what not to do in all facets of the new art principle.

I thought if I wasn’t born with math or spelling skills I was doomed to dumbness. When my teachers insisted I practice I thought they were asking me to CHEAT! After all if an employer asked and could I correctly spell, ‘disappoint’ he would then expect me to spell ‘abject failure’. Those were two words I had not ‘practiced’ 450 times in forth grade.

I’m used to failure and excitably surprised when I like my art and finally I learned I hadn’t been cheating. Perhaps children born with great skills are remarkable but more movies could be made about those who just won’t give up. And by the way I still had to readjust the word, ‘disappoint’ twice for this article. Ha. nancymauerman.com

Self Portrait