The perfect imperfect

I went through some of my old student books about interviews in an attempt to prepare myself for my first upcoming interview, on my way to start up as a “professional story teller”. How to make the perfect interview? How to start, how to finish? What is most important? What kind of interview do I want to make? I even found my thesis and started to read about some of the interviews I had done at university. Despite having already been told yesterday, by my intuition, not to prepare for another academic interview, I guess my intuition just played along and allowed me to continue my research and planning, the way I’m used to. Obviously it didn’t get me anywhere.

When I was a student at university I did a lot of interviews with all kinds of people. The interviews where part of projects, papers and my thesis. Some interviews I did together as a group of students, others I did by myself. The prepared questions were to be our plan for the interview. Our guide. We even tried to figure out how many questions we would be able to go through in the amount of time we were able to “steal” from this person. (Steal or borrow? Regardless not possible to ever give back). Should we add another question if it turned out we would have more time? Which question was the most important to get answered? Would the person be easy to talk to? Could I create the right atmosphere for trust and listening so the person would feel comfortable enough to open up and talk? We studied and prepared for hours, for weeks in order to create and write down the best questions possible. To make the plan for our interviews as perfect as possible.

I had taken today’s picture last week and knew somehow, that I needed to include it. I was lying on the ground looking up at the blue sky. Not a cloud seemed to be in sight. It was a perfect day. I took the picture, as I love the special version of blue it has this time a year. The spring. When I looked at it later, I, to my disappointment, discovered that it was not completely blue. Somehow something had sneaked in to the picture, without me noticing it first hand. It was no longer the perfect blue colour all over, like I had hoped.

Would there be a book, a song, anything that could give me some kind of clue? I tried to meditate. That didn’t work out well. I felt like my mind was too busy trying to work out what to write about. And all the things I needed to get done before picking up the children. And all the other things on my to-do-list. I needed to calm down my mind. My thoughts. My body. Not always an easy task. Especially when you’re an over thinker like me. I over think and analyse a lot. Too much. Which completely contradicts being in contact with your intuition (or does it? 🙂 )Wanting to feel everything and letting messages come to me, is by far not always something I can control. But recently I have learned to be patient and not to give up.

Suddenly I felt a need to turn my head and reach out for something (a book – surprise!) As I grabbed it, I asked which page is the connection to my story today. Page 78 was said. Loud and clear. I read page 78. My mind racing in order to figure it out. What was the connection to my theme of “perfect” today? I kept reading. I finished the page. Nothing came to mind. Could I be trying too hard to figure things out? Could I really always rely on my intuition for help to write (like I have become dependent on a lot lately). Or was my mind just playing tricks on me. I sat there. Page 78 didn’t ring any bells. I decided to carry on to page 79. The first sentence was: I wanted everything to be perfect.

As I was giving my oldest daughter a bath tonight, she said: it is perfect now. She was referring to the temperature of the water, as I was washing her hair. I was thinking how “perfect” had imperfectly been shown to me. Not the usual three times (of which I am often shown things), but four. I smiled knowing that I can trust my own guide – my intuition in preparing for telling the stories, that come to me from within and the stories that are yet to be told to me by others. Keeping in mind the most important thing of it all, never to stop.