In defence of imperfection.
I am human, I have a heart, I have emotions, I emote...
Before anything and everything, I cannot continue without admitting that the idea for this title came from the astonishingly brilliant who has written a series of essays ‘In defense of…” Each are written in gorgeous poetic prose, an ode to things misunderstood, once thought of, I couldn’t think of another more suitable for my own - Kimberly, thank you for endless inspiration.
ALSO, and importantly, please scroll to the bottom of this essay for exciting news about her memoire, ‘Unfixed’ and how you can help make it even more so. GO!
Hello my dear, dear friends,
There is so much beautiful knowing in the word ‘friends’ isn’t there? It is the why of my emphasis. The why of me saying thank you, with the deepest of gratitude, to every one of you whose hand reached out to catch my own trembling fingers after receiving a comment that not only blew the wind out of my sails but dragged me backwards, bruised to the extent a fear of ever writing again found me with every scrap of confidence in ruins hovering, disappointed and sad—so sad—over the delete button to my account.
So many of you were there, ready with your kindnesses to pull me back up from the bleak depths of the ‘you-are-not-worth-reading’ abyss, brush me down and send me flying out again when my instinct was to keep falling. I am overwhelmed by your love and endless encouragement, for your devotion and your understanding of my reason for writing in this unimaginably magical space, on pages I publish as A Hill & I. And, yet more so for your acceptance and embracing of my imperfections.
Because, there will always be imperfections. I am imperfect. In all our myriad ways, aren’t we all exquisitely, imperfect? I wrote in a reply to , ‘it is, at least, proof of being human.’ Of having a heart.
I have walked and thought many things, read more and walked more…
A post written by
titled ‘On writing and daring greatly’—you’ll find it here, states “we sprinkle bits of ourselves into our writing”. I believe we do.Our writing comes from deep within us, not to fulfil any misguided dreams of discovery but because we have big, warm hearts that beat fast and furiously when we stumble upon beauty. Such beauty is visceral, precious, too important to keep filed away within our own memories, it can be anything that is caught in the shimmering gossamer webs that make up our sensual souls, be that visual, auditory, olfactory. When I stand, breathless with wonder in a pool of dappled light in a forest glade watching the first leaves of autumn fall or come to a sudden, mesmerised standstill as clouds charge across my hill like a stampede of wild stallion, I am enveloped in an ephemeral moment that feels not only sacred but too astonishing to keep to myself. To write the words in the truest way I can, is simply a profound desire to share extraordinary with a world where my own, intimate, imperfect perceptions are appreciated and loved.
And, let me tell you, there is so much extraordinary to be found out there but who is qualified to say whether my falling leaf is perfect? Or whether the image I see in scudding clouds can be interpreted as such by another?
Hundreds of thousands of essays written here on Substack alone are filled with words about such moments, written by people with big human hearts filled with wonder, who are also filled with euphoria when they write.
Recently
wrote to me of a lonely sparrow lost in a stairwell because she knew it would touch me deeply—it did—also of a precious ring, lost and found. Both stories are moments in time that could happen to any one and each of us would tell them differently—I love both the how and why you told these stories Kendall!- wrote this line in an essay last month; “A Fox cub who comes and sits next to the Raspberry bush, testing each berry for its readiness by softly tugging on it with his front teeth.” I will never forget this image of a fox cub which arrived so close to the demise of old fox Chloe.
- who writes from her Rolling Desk has a style of writing so divinely and intuitively captivating one wonders just how many lives she has lived, wrote of “a hill above Tucson on a waning gibbous moon night”, Holly I watched the same gibbous moon on my hill that same evening, I wandered up the following night to see its fullness, I found only clouds and they were beautiful too.
I could fill endless pages with endless beauty caught in the senses of endless others, each of them writing from their own unique perceptions.
states;“…perception is not a byway so much as it is the experience of livingness across the whole of us, life grasping the experience of itself as a vital, expressive force…”
All of these momentary experiences Renée writes of, vital to each of our expressive forces are caught in the great universe of time when we have paid attention. And good grief, we pay attention! Didn’t Mary Oliver herself, her beautiful, gentle, imperfect self write;
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
To bear witness is holy. To share with passion and joy, with reckless, feral abandon a gift given unconditionally.
And, writing is not a precise science, it is creative, messy, diverse, sad, ecstatic, coloured vermillion, violet or blood-red. It is art. It will be depicted in infinite ways because creativity is impossible to contain within barriers like science. How we create is entirely individual, imperfect to some undoubtedly but never wrong. We perceive everything in the only way we should, that being, the only way we can, with our own emotions, our own perceptions and interpretations. If we didn’t we would all stop. Eventually, the world would fall silent. How desperately sad this world would be without art, without books written by real human hearts, with real emotions, with real imperfections…
Without exception it is why we practice humanness, for the chance of transferring an emotion—be it raw, beautiful, fearful or extraordinary—of a moment captured.
says;“…it’s about transporting emotional architecture from the writer to the reader's experience and through worlds sharing the human condition.”
Words, the images they build in our minds have the power to unleash us from confinement, self made or otherwise. They are enlightening, they fill us with knowledge and dreams and the liberty to free ourselves of ailments and fear, make us gasp, breathless in wonder.
sent these words out to us in her ravishing essay ‘Word Witcher’.Do you bring me to the precipice and hold me there, gaping at the beauty of your turn of phrase, then push me over the edge into the ecstasy of freefall, without a second glance? Does it come easily to you, to let me hurtle toward the rocks below, believing I will be dashed to pieces on them, my body broken and bloodied, only to catch me at the last moment and lift me once more, soaring into a wild expanse of wonder?…
Isn’t that beautiful!
I walked for a long time. The entire circumference of the hill felt the fall of my uncertain steps. I wandered along the valley bottom in the—hopeless—hope of the dry river bed freshly flowing again. No fish had returned, no water boatmen skimmed across what should be a constantly moving, sparkling surface, not even a curious heron lifted its wings in flight as I approached. Uncertainty it appears, is evident everywhere, in the slow return of life, it is not limited. I walked very close to emptiness, touched the void.
I have walked for two weeks with this feeling, watched the hill return from limp and colourless lethargy to vibrant, pulsating, green life again. I imagined the simple act of osmosis, tried to assimilate the process, to recall the excited course of energy flowing through leaves into branches into trunk into roots but many of the branches are broken, more time is needed for new shoots to appear, to grow back strong and confident from imperfections emanated by unforeseen wounds.
I am only just beginning to sense movement.
Today and forever more—though it terrifies me to say—being human, with all the emotions being human carries, will count.
Always with imperfectly human love
Kimberly’s breath-stopping, heart-moving memoire is due out on bookshelves on 14 October 2025, you can read the reviews here then preorder below. GO!
Oh how splendid! Imperfection is the most creative, colorful, limitless proof of being human, and it is what births beauty and genius. I feel this every time I read your words, look at your photographs, and feel the heartful longing within them. Renée Eli has been writing about the magnetic emanations of the heart and it makes me wonder if this is what is transmitted through creativity, invisible waves of direct experiencing that have the ability to enliven anyone lucky enough to be on the receiving end. I feel like that person today after reading your generous piece, holding out your warm arms to invite me in for encouragement and support. I’m endlessly thankful Susie. You are a true friend, as are so many of the beauties you mentioned in your letter. It’s as if every note, letter, comment or essay casts another thread into the great web of our shared human-ing. It’s a beautiful place to be. Thank you from the entirety of my heart.
Elegant and so generous essay that mentions such wonderful writers here! I love Kimberly Warner and, of course, read everything as it got posted, bought the book early and have reviewed it too. So perhaps it would help if I posted my review here:
"Unfixed is a marvel of personal revelation, empathy and a real-life story of discovery. What Warner has done is to blend her own unusual illness—a kind of real-life floating—with the discovery of her parentage: Two stories of fracture and healing that don’t depend on resolution. The result is a heartrending memoir that will give you hope and believe not only in storytelling but also in goodness. --Mary Tabor"
Love to you, Susie for your writing that is so humane and wondrous with moving poetic imagery.