I have been grouchy today: and all because I cannot be perfect.
Again and again, during the day, compromise was necessary. There was not enough time to be perfect, the way I might have been had I no children and no family to preoccupy me. I know the theory behind this: I am lucky to have my life and my family, and sacrificing the ability to be artistically excellent is a small price to pay.
Yet still it smarts.
And this evening I stumbled upon a beautiful rejoinder which gently admonished me without ill-feeling.
And so, I am sharing it with you.
Our story today is set in the wild wastes of the Ural Mountains: one of the most ancient mountain ranges in the world which runs from North to South across Western Russia. A vast band of stone, it has both a polar region and a southern region, coniferous forests and deciduous, underground streams and rivers which freeze for large parts of the year.
It has great black mountains, vast crags of snow capped rock, and deep lakes.
And precious stones.
It was here, in the city of Sysert, that revolutionary and writer Pavel Bazhov collected tales from the miners of the Ural mountains, and put them into a book called The Malachite Casket.
And this is one of the tales.
Once upon a time there was an artist-daydreamer named Danila. No-one thought he would amount to much but he had the luck to be apprenticed to a prominent stone mason called Prokopych.
Danila began to show unusual promise. Unlike most masons thereabouts, who had a man-made idea and imposed it on the stone, he seemed to be able to see what lay within the stone and bring it to life. He had an eye for everything that was breathtakingly beautiful.
The business thrived under the mason and his talented apprentice, and life was good.
Yet, Danila still cursed the imperfection of his work. Even his most intuitive efforts to realise the stone’s spirit seemed to him clumsy and lacking in perception. He longed for an extra sight which would let the shapes step out of the stone towards him.
One day, he heard about The Stone Flower.
The Stone Flower was somewhere within Copper Mountain, under the dominion of a sprite known as its Mistress. She alone engendered perfection in the craftsmen who pledged alleigance to her, and set eyes on the Flower. No other craftsman could hope to come close.
Poor Danila: he became obsessed. He would never have perfection, he knew, until he had seen the Stone Flower. His boss told him to marry a pretty woman and forget. He followed Prokopych’s advice, and Katya was all a man could wish for, a second self.
But on the eve of his wedding he could not help himself. He went looking for the Mistress of Copper Mountain. The rocks, so often working partners and friends, had no answers today, and Danila sank down onto one and cried. “Oh, I wish I could see the Flower!” he wept.
And he looked up to see the Mistress. She told him he could see the Flower: but he must leave all his loved ones and never set eyes on them again. He accepted immediately, with no thought for Katya: “There is no life for me without it!” he exclaimed.
He came home that night in a strange mood: and on the morning of their wedding, he vanished without a trace.
Three years passed, and they were monochrome for Katya. Prokopych and her parents died, and she eked a small living carving little pieces of stone and setting them into brooches.
One day she went wondering and came to the same place Danila had wept, years before. She came face to face with the Mistress herself.
“What do you want?” asked the Mistress.
“My Danila back,” Katya replied.
And so the Mistress summoned Danila. She warned him that if he returned to those he loved, he would forget the perfection he had learned, there on Copper Mountain.
Danila sighed a heavy sigh. “I think about Katya every minute of every day,” he said. “I can bear it no longer.” and he walked to Katya’s side.
They walked away, hand in hand, and never looked back at Copper Mountain.
But when Danila began to turn stone in the little workshop which was the hub of the couple’s business, he found his skills were unblemished. He had put his second self first, and been accorded the ability to create perfection in partnership with her.
And that is where we leave them, carving stone together in the distant mountains of a slightly enchanted mountain range.
I would like to learn secondhand what Danila took three harsh lonely years to learn: that perfection is hollow without those we love.
Kate Shrewsday 
This story is better than running a month of marriage counseling sessions. Thank you 🙂
It is an incredible documenting of the search for artistry, and the power of love, isn’t it, Wonderingpilgrim?
‘perfection is hollow without those we love.’
Truth indeed. Thanks, Kate
You’re welcome, Myfanwy. Now I just have to convince my heart as well as my head.
Perfect. Thanks, Kate.
I think we’re all us bloggers perfectionists, EB.
Like EB says: perfect.
Thanks Tilly 🙂
A beautiful story for all of us Type A’s that just keep trying a little harder to get it just right.
It’s hard to let that go, isn’t it, Lou? I find it almost impossible sometimes.
Oh, how true 🙂
🙂
You’ve moved me to tears, Kate. Some of the largest regrets in my life center on the fact that for years I could not let go of my need for doing all things “right.”
This could be a wake-up call. Thanks.
Sometimes a story says it best of all, doesn’t it, Karen?
Just exactly the thing I needed to read with my Monday morning coffee and my endless tinkering of things.
Ah, so many of us here in the blogosphere are endless tinkerers 🙂
A beautiful story, Kate.
Trust those tempestuous Russians, Cindy 🙂
Perfect read of the day Kate – lovely
Thanks Rosemary. The story helped me so much yesterday.
I’m going to have to print this out on MTM’s plotter in a couple of weeks and spangle it across the walls of my office. I get my book back from the editor, and I need to remember that it will never be perfect.
Although others may see it that way, Andra: I think Beethoven had a similar frustration with his own work. It is the flip side of creating, isn’t it?
I love this story. And how true. If there is no one to share our striving with, the achievements are indeed hollow.
Somehow, Elizabeth, the story says it as I never could. It slips in through the consciousness with the stealth of an allegory.
Great story
Those miners from the Urals – what a set of stories they left us!
That was wonderful, Kate (and not a bad way to go on a curmudgeonly day).
Sometimes a story or a line will just hit me, right there in the middle of a grumpy day, and it seems meant for me…
A “wow” piece and a magnificent story Kate – lofty ideal for which we strive and often easier said than done! Thank you for Danila’s story 🙂
It was a gift I received yesterday, Linda: just passing it on 🙂
beautiful, kate. i’ll remember it as we return to norway next week, and to a busy busy life…
Good story, and good for Mr. Bahzov: It is a noble calling to seek out stories and make sure they are not forgotten.
I love the start to this:
I have been grouchy today: and all because I cannot be perfect.
Again and again, during the day, compromise was necessary. There was not enough time to be perfect, the way I might have been had I no children and no family to preoccupy me.
If you remember that our perfection lies in our imperfection, you won’t have to sell Felix and Maddie to the gypsies . . . to run away to Copper Mountain. 😉
She shouldn’t have taken him back 😉 Great story Kate with a lesson for all those looking for that something out there, when they have something better all along. Which reminds me of another tale about 3 billy goats gruff, a troll and some grass that seemed greener on the otherside (I so love European and Nordic tales).
Loved this story, Kate and your honesty. I wonder at times how much of my perfectionism is actually what I THINK others would expect of me.
Very nice, Kate! 😀
Cheers, Tom.Love the Northern Lights piece over at yours.
Re opening sentence. Hey it is not easy being perfect. It has been very stressful for me to maintain my perfection now entering my 7th decade. Being perfect all time time is a full time job allowing no rest.
A warning fable, Kate – it’s the small moments in life that matter, the minutiae of daily life, not the 5 minutes of fame? What is perfection, anyway? Everyone has a different idea of it, and a life in its pursuit is a singular one
My husband does things right; I get things DONE.
I’ll take my way any day!
Me too, Mollie 😀