Spark to Fire

To build a fire all by myself topped the list of tasks required for a badge at my Girl Scout Camp Wanesic in the mid 50s.  A fourth-grader, I had a jump on my troop-mates because my dad had taught me all I needed to know about how to do it. He took me on walks in the woods to pick up sticks and other materials for burning. This stuff we call punk and it gets things going, he explained, and he showed me how dried needles, leaves, and shredded bark flame up fast. He held up his thumb before he sent me scouring for the kindling we’d need for after the fire was underway. With his knife, he peeled back bark so I’d understand the difference between green and dried out wood for the larger pieces of fuel. Tinder, kindling, greenwood, seasoned dry or hardwood, thick as my wrist, narrow as my thumb, short and shredded, long as my arm.  Afterwards, I struggled to remember the names, shapes and sizes, but, together that day, Dad and I had made a roaring fire. Because of this early accomplishment, confidence flavored my two week stint at camp that year, I put off my solo build until the very last day and, then I failed miserably.   

Lucky for me, that summer I had mastered the Australian crawl, climbed trees higher than anyone and learned to dive head first into the pool. I wasn’t crushed, but, in an instant, my nine year old’s inflated puff of confidence fizzled. I felt exposed and embarrassed as I knelt before the materials I’d gathered and they simply refused to ignite. My troop leader kindly walked me through time-honored fire-building steps, but I’d gotten a memorable and painful lesson into the time and effort involved in building a skill. 

Flash forward several decades. It’s 1988, a time before the internet began to commonize (and, I think, minimize) every human experience. I’m a returning adult into the workforce embarking on a new career as a high school English teacher. Honors had accompanied the Bachelor of Arts degree I’d worked hard to complete; I’d done an extra certification year; and I sailed through the National Teacher Exam. Despite all of my preparatory endeavors, I was a wreck. I walked around school heavy with the weight of a pervasive, emotional drag. Riddled with fear,  I relied on three by five note cards I drew up to ground myself in my subject matter. During my lunch break I prepared even more. I’d duck into the restroom between classes to take deep breaths and compose myself. At all times I felt like someone was going to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I’d been found out and I was most definitely not a teacher.  What was I to do?

I shared my torment with my therapist who promptly told me I had imposter syndrome. To me, the word imposter described someone deceitful and with malicious intent. I loved kids and learning, so that didn’t add up. My husband, Jim, who’d been career building for over 15 years, had another take. Although I found his message repugnant, his comments made much more sense. After assuring me that he understood my discomfort, he pointed out that in his view, no one really got good at anything until they’d been at it for five or ten years. I balked in disbelief; this was not what I wanted to hear.  It would be 20 years before Malcolm Gladwell would publish Outliers, his best-selling book on success, where he says that to gain expertise in a craft, field or endeavor you must practice for 10,000 hours. What can I say, my husband is a savant and it’s good I took his advice.

As my years of teaching accumulated, I began to relax with the growth process and momentum flowed. Five years became ten and when I retired after 22 years of teaching, I got some of my best ideas as the kids were walking into the classroom. My father modeled it, my husband called it, and it took years for me to come to know: a career, like a well built fire, requires patience and lots of practice before it starts to glow.

Spark to Fire