Last August, I had a new tattoo inked into my arm. A single word. In cedar-green.

Timshel.

“Thou mayest.”

About nineteen years ago, a wonderful student demanded that I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. The page leaves turned over and over, like seasons falling, and I consumed the book. And, midway, as the Adam character tries to understand life, his friend, Lee, discusses the meaning of a single word. Timshel. Thou mayest.

Choice. 

When I chose timshel for my tattoo, I thought about my drive for perfection. I push myself so damn hard to do everything right or as close to right as possible. I hate making mistakes and hate how those mistakes will have consequences and effects and affects on others. When timshel was pinned into my arm, I was dealing with something. 

And all I could hear in my head was imperfection. Mistakes. Pain. Grief. 

Timshel is recognizing that I will never be perfect. But I can choose to be good. 

No matter how many times I revise, Polishing the Bones will never be perfect. I will always need or want to tweak that word or that chapter or that character.

I will never make each every one of my students happy or their parents. I will my best always to care for the students in my room, to honor their parents. To my best by everyone.

But I can’t. For, somehow, in pleasing whatever percentage, I will upset that one. 

Or I won’t. Because I will not conform my morals or ethics to what I think are incorrect or inhumane behaviors. 

But I will timshel. I will choose. I will choose to be good. I will choose to do my best to care for others and to show compassion. I will choose to do my best writing and editing and revising and more writing because I care about the craft and I care about my writing and I care about the words that sleep within me.

I will choose to do my best to my family. To devote myself to their individual needs and to care for each them as that need arises. I will choose my best to help and support my children to the best of my abilities and will choose to help and support my parents and parents-in-law as they age. I will choose to ensure that they have their dignity. Their honor. Their self-respect.

But I will fall short of the perfection I aspire to exhibit. And I pray that when I do “fail” that the mistakes are not catastrophic for that is not my choice nor my intention. 

But I will choose to allow myself to breathe. To pop the speech bubbles and stop the cyclic spinning. To run my fingers along the soft part of my left arm and remember to choose.

To choose to be good.

And that will be enough.