This is utterly trivial, and I should be working right now, but the other day I was making dinner and had a vivid memory that haunts me a bit.
I was peeling some carrots into the sink, and thought, huh, this takes me about 10 seconds and it barely registers in my mind as a thing to do or a moment, including getting out the ergonomic peeler gadget from the drawer and cleaning the peels out of the sink to compost.
The memory that flashed into my head was of being quite small, standing on a little stool in front of the kitchen sink in our apartment in either Ithaca or Detroit, wearing an apron, clumsily gripping our rattly metal peeler in my tiny fist, and of each carrot being a sort of endless labor, and feeling proud when I could get one long strip of peel all the way down the carrot. It was so difficult and such a production. And my mom had to do more work to stage me there than it would have taken her to peel the carrots herself and she (a very quick and efficient person) is not really the most patient of people. I felt a moment of appreciation for her making space for a small child to “help” and thus to learn.
In the drawer of aprons and tablecloth I would beg to wear the fanciest apron which was a pale blue with a sort of gauzy white bit to it, in my mind, the ball gown of aprons, almost too fancy to wear for every day.
As all this flashed into my mind I tried to appreciate the present moment and my grown up (old looking!) hands capably wrangling my 3 carrots for the chicken stew and tidying it all up, done in 30 seconds.
When was the moment that I mastered such things? When do we go from struggling to competence?
I think of it as an artist and writer, and as an occasional teacher or mentor. The things I can do almost casually are real skills, which I should remember took time and practice to develop, I can have a little respect for that in myself. Once something is easy to me, I often feel like it doesn’t “count” in some way when I do it. (This doesn’t make sense but I think it’s a common feeling !) And of course remembering patience with other people and while not suppressing myself or my skills also not being an ass about it.