Passion and Pumpkins

I am still licking my wounds from a fight I had the other day—a big bloody battle with the beast of doubt. Another weekend was upon me and I was riddled with a fit of feasting blues. Why am I doing these stupid feasts? I thought. No one cares. No reads my blog . . . . and what’s more, most of the time I suck at cooking. I’m one giant, loud-mouthed fake of a cook.

Okay, you get the point that I was in full pouty sulky self-pitying mode. I got home from work and sat in the kitchen. I was supposed to be making pumpkin ravioli, as promised, for my mother’s poetry party. Instead I sat there in front of a big pumpkin, bawling my eyes out. And then, just as I was working myself into a full blown meltdown, something happened. I had one of those moments when, from out of nowhere, I was given a massive emotional kick in the butt. I remembered that man on the radio.

It had happened that morning, as I fumbled through the pre-dawn ritual—kettle on, shower, make tea, get dressed—I turned on the radio just in time to hear the tail end of a most inspiring interview. A man was talking about people doing what they are passionate about. He commented on how we are often quick to make excuses and remain chained to the insipid daily grind. We are content to complain about work and merely couch dream of following our hearts. But now, when the channels of communication provided by the internet have made it effectively free to get your voice out, it is cowardly to play the victim and not pursue your dream. You think you don’t have time? Get up earlier, he growls.

At six in the morning, I shuddered. Get up earlier? Are you shitting me? But then, as the tea made its soothing way into my body, rousing my brain, I began mulling over his words. Within minutes I had to admit he has a point. It is so easy to complain and lack the guts to go after your passion, or to idolize it as an unattainable fantasy. Just like many of the things we want, the fanstasy is far simpler than the fissured reality.

I walked to work with the darkness wrapped around me, layered with dew, apples, and the wet fallen leaves of autumn. I thought about vocation and passion—these ideas with which I have been wrestling for years. Although I don’t claim any expertise in the matter, I have read volumes on vocation, listened to eloquent speeches on the art of pursuing your passion, and debated with friends, family, and teachers on these topics.

Through all this searching certain principles have surfaced. One of these, which strikes a chord within my own experience, and of which I was reminded by the radio interview, is that one’s passion takes work. We often have a Hollywood vision of vocation in which the artist or writer, scientist or teacher wakes up every morning brimming with enthusiasm and conviction. The truth is much closer to what one of my flamenco teachers said when asked about becoming a professional dancer: “It’s about 90% sweat and 10% inspiration.” For me that figure would change to about 95% sweat, doubt, and over analysis, with a measly 5% inspiration.

And yet, despite the odds, I had one of those rousing moments there, sitting in the kitchen in front of that big old pumpkin with my cheeks all wet. It was as if in that gloriously deranged moment the pumpkin was my life: “Are you gonna take me and turn me into something wonderful?” it said, “Or just let me rot?”

In response I glowered at the vegetable, got up and grabbed my biggest knife. Just watch it, pumpkin! Just you watch my dust!