Our Infinite Perfectibility/Our Perfection

Alex and I had lunch with a very dear friend today. Jan has a special relationship with Murphy (he put a major hole in her leg during his early years, when he was still learning how to be civilized), and she wanted to visit him. Over lunch, as usual, we talked about our work, our personal lives, the ongoing health care debate, the health of the society and the planet, our progress through life, and what sort of response is called for by the times we live in. I came away with a clearer sense of where I am in my world and how I’m going to tackle the issues that are facing me now, mostly with respect to Murphy’s care. I also came away with a deep appreciation of my friend Jan and the way she has supported me, and allowed me to support her, through all the years that I’ve known her.

After I arrived home and said my goodbyes to both Jan and Alex, I turned my attention to the boxes of stuff I brought home from my mother’s apartment last spring, determined to make good on my resolution to work through them by the end of summer. I spied one that I knew contained the contents of an end-table drawer in her living room. Good, I thought, that one will be easy. It doesn’t contain anything too personal or too emotionally fraught. Sorting through it, I’ve found maps (over a dozen road maps of Ohio, and a healthy representation of each state in which her children live); more decks of cards than I ever knew she had, including a couple that I vividly remember playing with; two sets of coasters that must have been the fruits of under-$5.00 gift exchanges at work; and many, many brochures, booklets and articles cut from newspapers about high blood pressure, osteoporosis, eating right, exercise, local programs for seniors, herbal and holistic remedies, personal finance, and home improvement. That was my mother. She never stopped looking for new ways to get better and be better. There wasn’t a newspaper article about health and fitness-- including financial fitness and house and garden fitness-- that ever escaped her attention. She never lost her essentially optimistic belief or interest in the perfectibility of the human enterprise, and she never stopped trying to attain that perfection—even if her effort sometimes went no further than cutting and saving the information. The contents of the box may not have been very personal or emotionally fraught, but they brought home one aspect of Vicki Stepanek that I knew very, very well.

I smile because, seeing my mother’s better living archives so soon after sharing a heartfelt powwow on life over lunch with people I love on a perfectly archetypal late July day, I know that she didn’t have to strive so hard for that perfection. None of us do. We are perfect just as we are.