I was with a group of people recently when I heard someone say about someone else, "She can cook, but she sure can't bake."
It struck me as utterly absurd because both involve ingredients and measuring and mixing. Both depend upon stoves or ovens to bring their magic to completion.
The previous evening, I'd whipped up a mountain of tofu noodles topped with baby clams, artichoke hearts, arugula, pine nuts, shaved Parmesan cheese, a drizzle of blood orange olive oil and a twist of cracked pepper, a meal so spectacular that I considered starting a Facebook fan page just for it. With my intuitive talent for cooking, I thought: How could it be possible that I couldn't also bake? And then I went home and made cookies.
According to my Yummly recipe app, the luscious little gems required only five ingredients and a time commitment of 20 minutes. They also required a stand mixer, which I did not have, but for which I substituted a hand-held mixer and stood while using it, which seemed like almost the same thing.
An hour and a half later, my kitchen was blanketed in powdered sugar and cocoa dust, the first batch of cookies were in the trash because someone on Yummly forgot to mention greasing the pan, and I realized I had, unbelievably, left out one of the five ingredients. The second batch looked to be salvageable, although I'd spooned the batter onto the baking sheet in such generous amounts that instead of 4 dozen cookies I wound up with 12 cookies the size of personal-pan pizzas.
I was, I realized, one of those people who can cook but not bake. And I wondered: Were there other activities at which I was both adept and inept? Certainly there is the matter of being an excellent driver with no sense of direction. And well-read with no memory for plot. I love a great joke but lose the punch lines.
There was a time in my life when this would have bothered me more than it does now, when I'd have ignored my capabilities but obsessed over my shortcomings. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe it's because I'm trying more things that frighten me or that I don't know how to do. But the point is: It doesn't matter that much to me if I can't do everything well. Nobody has ever accused me of being a perfectionist.
Not long ago I came across a Facebook post from author Elizabeth Gilbert in which she talked about fear. The post was actually a note she'd written to a writer friend who had confessed to Gilbert that she was afraid her book was self-indulgent and shallow. Gilbert assured her repeatedly that her book was good, but the friend couldn't take it in.
After a few rounds of reassurances, Gilbert gave up and instead sent back a note addressing her friend's fear. Which, it turns out, was what the conversation was really about. The note was blunt.
"Your fears about your book aren't very interesting or very original," Gilbert wrote. "These are exactly the same fears that EVERYONE who has ever created anything feels. Nothing fine or precious or artisanal about them. So don't treat them like they're precious."
Gilbert went on to liken the friend's fears to "the neighbor's dog barking in the background," a dull, annoying patter that wasn't going to go away, but that she didn't have to tune into.
"I realized this about my own fears a few years ago," Gilbert went on to write, "that they are always exactly the same, and that they are always exactly the same as everyone else's, and therefore they are nothing special and actually just kind of boring."
Then she quoted an old Bedouin line: "The dogs bark; the caravan passes anyhow."
Gilbert wrote to her friend: "Your caravan needs to pass along now on its journey, whether fear barks at you loudly or not. It's time."
Far more interesting than fear, Gilbert reminds us, is mystery: the not-knowing what's in store for us once we've created the thing, taken the leap, faced the challenge, embraced the resolution.
"Can you predict the future?" a therapist once asked me. Of course not. But we do know that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Which strikes me as a good reason to put my fears on a back burner and start being now who I want to be tomorrow. With the new year around the corner, it's time.
Contact Dana Shavin at danalise@juno.com.