lessons on adventure

I'm thinking about turning in an essay to a magazine that always rejects me.  But, it'd be apropos considering the month's topic.  Lessons.  I think this would be a fun take on it because lessons bring to mind: my first grade self, a timer set to thirty minutes, a metronome, a piano, a hard bench, and five versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" (thank you, Mr. Suzuki).  Dear God, such agony. I don't think it was supposed to take over a year to progress to the next song.  That Mr. Suzuki lacked imagination. I think the poor little star lost all motivation to shine after hearing me pound out my encouragement day after day.  No doubt my fingers weren't the only body part getting pounded, my poor teacher must have pounded her head against the wall before and after my arrival.

Another example of a negative connotation regarding "lesson": a math text book's style of division.  Lesson 3 on Monday, then Lesson 3.1 on Tuesday, then Lesson 3.2 on Wednesday, then Lesson 3.3 and 3.4 on Thursday because everybody was getting the hang of it with the quiz on Friday.  It was like a really horrific game of telephone because I was clueless on Monday and completely confused and even more clueless come Friday.  I was so bad at Math I would tell my teachers that the answers in the back of the book were wrong.  I was in a Catch 22 in college because my SAT score forced into a higher level Math than I was capable of doing (I'm a good guesser, just ask my profs).  I was so f'ing lost-- emphasis on F.  Business Calculus?!? Seriously? Who came up with that? I wasn't going to start an engineering firm.

Whereas, "adventure" is another story.  Adventures are amazing!  For instance, moving to Vancouver with nowhere to stay.  That's awesome.  Traveling in Peru and Ecuador without knowing the language-- that's cool.

But, as I'm writing this I'm realizing that a lot of the difference has to do with my framing mechanism.  I hated piano and math and were terrible at them-- I never endeavored to succeed at them. My goal was merely to survive them.  OMG, am I morphing into Oprah?  Have I discovered the power of a positive attitude?  Or, maybe it isn't that.  Maybe, it's the power of story-- even within my own memory.  I write very different stories with my memory on different periods.  I'm far better at editing out the terrible parts of a trip (the cold showers, the loneliness) than I am in remembering the positive aspects of my escapades at a piano (there is bound to be something positive that happened even if nothing comes to mind).  It's also a lesson in how competitive I am-- I despise being bad at something.  It's way easier to smart kid in the class than to be the clueless wonder.  I watched "Anne of Avonlea" last night and was struck by Anne's tenacious pluck in all situations.  It required some suspension of disbelief.  I think what I need is to apply a sense of adventure to what I do.  I'm not on a job hunt... I'm on a job QUEST.   ... or maybe crack.

I don't mind rejection from the magazine because I love to write.  It's an adventure not a lesson.