Kira Rambles

I butchered the first board I planed with a block plane in maritime trades at Fort Ticonderoga. I set the blade too deep, and instead of peeling off the thin layers a visitor told me her grandmother used to make a blonde play wig as a girl in the 1890s, I carved out chunks, leaving craters deeper than the saw marks it started with. 

My boss warned me that might happen, and I knew I had to mess up; a substantial part of my undergrad in Recreation and Outdoor Education involved experiential learning, and the experiential learning cycle works best when it starts with failure. 

Also called the reflective cycle or Kolb’s experiential learning style theory (wonder why that name didn’t catch on), the cycle starts with an experience. Someone tries something. Then, they reflect on what went well and what went wrong, conceptualize what caused success and what caused failure, and try again, applying that learning. Because it’s a lot harder to figure out why something went right without already knowing a skill or concept, people usually learn more from their mistakes, and the better one analyzes their failures and figures out what caused them, the more they learn. 

My problem was that I didn’t want to analyze my failures. I wanted the block plane to work. 

I’ve always been stubborn. When I was learning Spanish in Spain, I dated an ex who does not speak English, and I remember trying to describe the concept of being pig-headed. The phrase does not literally translate, but I entertained my ex, who felt that a pig running their head into their pen was sometimes a good metaphor for me. 

Which might be why, even after I figured out how to set the block plane blade and accumulated a leaf-jump-sized pile of the translucent paper pine shavings boatbuilders would sell for cash on the barrel as fire starter in the 18th century, I dreaded smoothing out the first board I butchered. 

That was when I received honorable mention in a chapbook contest for the first poetry chapbook I have ever submitted. Somehow, the feeling was the same. While there was something affirming about the honorable mention, just like knowing I had improved with the block plane, I dreaded revising and resubmitting the chapbook. 

Just like I know the experiential learning cycle, I know writing is a game of rejections and revisions. Being pig-headed, though, I often feel resistant to revision. I’m working to overcome that resistance, but it also feels important to name that this cycle doesn’t have to be fun. I recently spoke with a friend from my undergrad program, and, when I asked her how she was, she said she was sick of experiential learning opportunities; even when we know failing makes us stronger and smarter, sometimes it’s nice for things to work the first time. And that’s okay. 

I still haven’t replaned that first plank, but it’s on my to-do list. I have resubmitted my chapbook. Time will tell how many times I’ll work through the experiential learning cycle before they become final products, and, in the meantime, I’m trying to remember I’m learning a lot.