For a long time, I did not know how to eat with chopsticks. It was a source of great fawning for me, watching anybody eating with chopsticks. And I would watch them a lot — stealing glances as they microscopically picked up their fried rice or slurped their ramen, the deft dancing of chopsticks and soup spoon, casually layering conversation and laughter with slippery filaments of enoki mushrooms and runny eggs. What was this sorcery?
And more importantly, how could I be part of it? I always assumed that I wouldn’t know how to use chopsticks, and then one day would arrive, when magically I would. Clean cut and discreet, one day ignorance and another day beaming, confident knowing. All the learning would be done in secret, in special class-like formats, where I would sit down with my food in private and learn in seriousness, emerging one day as a seasoned expert. The fumbles and the frustrations, the dropped noodles and the slipped sushi — all hidden away as illegitimate.
Over time though, I started to suspect that that wasn’t how it worked, and no one cared in any real way about my chopsticks journey. And if they cared, it usually was through a lens of encouragement or good-natured detachment. Besides, imposing strict rules and a clause for perfect conditions around my learning meant that I wasn’t practising my skills often.
So one day, frustrated from the inertia, I took the plunge — sitting at a buzzing food court at lunch hour, I pinched my Kimbap with chopsticks and inelegantly took my first bite. Anti-climatically, nothing happened. The chopstick police did not appear out of nowhere, telling me off for doing it wrong. Nobody around me even looked up from their hot pots.
Gradually, I started to drop both my guard and my sashimi in public more and more. Small shreds of progress started to appear, and based off of that progress I was getting more confident, buoyed by my incremental wins. Nasi lemuk, gyoza, pad thai, laksa, fried chicken dipped in sweet chilli sauce — everything was fair game. I was on a wave, feeling good about myself, proud for trying and ready to have sushi with my demons. I even started using chopsticks at home to fry my eggs, check on my steaming broccoli and at snack time, with my pieces of fruit.
By increasing the surface area of my exposure to the skill I was trying to learn, I saw that I was naturally reducing my fear of getting it wrong. By piling up the repetitions, I was snapping out of the paralysation of perfection. I was gaining more skill muscle and momentum and pride in myself. Small steps begetting small wins, leading to big waves that lead to compounding victories.
I’ve been using it in other areas too — parallel parking on busy streets as the cars pile up behind me, public speaking, trying out a something risky like a new joke or a foreign flavour profile or bold haircut. With bigger things too like writing more or saying no or picking a side.
Stepping out of my head and just backing myself. Not holding my learning or my dreams or my progress hostage to perfect conditions anymore.
Onwards and upwards.
Recommendations and discoveries from the week
Wiser than me by Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus launched a new podcast, where she talks to older women about their life stories and gleans lessons. Naturally, I’m listening to this one with Jane Fonda first.
The Light We Carry
After being 35th in list for a very long time, my reservation for The Light We Carry finally became available and received it gratefully with both hands. She writes about the different tools she uses to get her through everyday life, and i’ve been lovingly nursing it at bedtime. This paragraph about knitting just put the biggest smile on my face,
Maybe it’s an itty bitty green hat that you bring to a baby shower for a friend. Maybe its a soft crewneck sweater you give your Hawaiian-born husband who gets chilled easily in winter. Maybe you’ve turned out an alpaca halter top with pretty coiled straps that looks perfect against the beautiful brown skin of your nineteen-year old as she smiles, grabs the car keys and rockets past you, out the door and off into this chaotic and never-complete world.
And for just a minute or two, you can see that it matters — that what you’ve made is exactly enough.
Maybe that counts as progress.
- Michelle Obama
That’s all from me for now, folks. Hope you’re having a magnificent week, wherever you are.
xx
Som