A minor talent

I have some talent musically. I studied piano for twelve years, and tutored it for a summer after high school. I played the sax in band, first the alto then the bari. I can play an octave on a dozen instruments, and pick out the three-note melody for Mary Had a Little Lamb on almost anything. I sang in choir, and when in condition had an alto range that could serviceably manage a tenor through a soprano.

I also have some talent with the written word. I wrote poetry unceasingly from middle through high school. I got in to honors English in high school on the strength of an impromptu essay. I won a partial but significant scholarship to college based on a collection of my essays and poems. I was chosen for a very small honors colloquium at the college I ended up choosing. I flatter myself that I am skilled enough to write a blog worth reading.

And yet...

One of my best friends is a musical genius, an easy natural with near-perfect pitch. She picks up instruments like others pick up... well, nothing. Socks, perhaps. I sat in first row in my instrument in high school; she sat first chair in hers. The guitar is one of the instruments that has so far eluded me; yesterday I was at her house, and listened to her play a professional sounding accompaniment to several children's songs... that she had "just picked out".

My other best friend is a twice-published novelist, whose lyrical, honest narrative wins critical acclaim internationally. I won a partial scholarship to a liberal arts college with my writing; she won a larger scholarship to a fine arts university with hers. I'm watching her craft a third novel, as she takes a plot which could be sappy or heavy-handed (as indeed all plots could) and uses it to tell truth and beauty in alternating heart-stopping and humorous ways, choosing language and imagery I could never in a hundred years think of.

As I stand with my minor talent in the shadow of these greats, I struggle to avoid the cultural conditioning which says I must be in competition with other women, which says if I cannot be the best, why bother. It is a struggle, to be sure, and sometimes I think I do turn green with envy -- not a flattering color for my ivory-pink complexion, nor an appreciative enough treatment of my goddess-granted and mother-descended gifts. I struggle to avoid the comparisons which are the root of competition, to stand proud with what I do have, when every part of the patriarchy tells me I could never be good enough, even if I were the best. I struggle to deny the messages that say I must either hate or worship those more blessed than I: those with more musical talent, those with more writing talent, and those of the "right", more privileged gender. Rejecting that culturally-dictated hatred -- hatred of the better, or hatred of the self -- may seem like a minor feat, but it is one of the most radical acts I can imagine.