From Mistake to Possibility
Finding freedom in flaws and beauty in imperfection
I sat down to write for a few minutes in my journal and spend another few minutes working on my Zentangle drawing before starting my day. My beloved fountain pen — freshly filled just the other day — refused to write. Whatever ink was in the feed wouldn’t come out.
I twisted the refillable cartridge, and ink spilled down the sides of the tip, dripping onto the folded paper towel I’d learned to keep handy for moments like this.
When I tried to write, the letters came out fat and saturated, bleeding through the page. Then the ink dried up, so I started again: twist, spill, write. And again, until finally the ink flowed through the feed but still came out too thick.
This is what happens when I add dish soap to my ink, a hack I found online to make the writing experience smoother, but perhaps I’d used too much.
I almost tore the page out of my journal and switched to my other pen, but I wanted to get this one working. So I persevered. My journal page bled with black ink, but finally the feed worked and the ink flowed well, albeit still a little too thick.
But oh, what silky writing.
It was a small victory, proof that patience could transform frustration into flow. Encouraged, I turned to my small square sketchbook to continue a Zentangle design I was copying from a book.
Although it’s supposed to be for beginners, the book’s patterns get progressively harder, and I’ve nearly given up several times. The design I was working on had me drawing a series of bowling pin-shaped patterns. Easy enough, right? Not so much.
For some reason, my brain refused to draw them correctly. One side bulged out like it should, but the other caved inward like it shouldn’t, creating bowling pins squashed on one side. They looked so wonky I nearly ripped the page from my sketchbook.
But I paused.
What could I do to save this design, to make it my own? I drew a line down the middle of my poor, sagging bowling pins and filled one side with slanted lines and the other with black ink.
The result? A pattern rescued. Instead of giving in to my perfectionist tendencies, I ended up with a drawing that reflected my own flair.
It felt good to keep going past the flaws and to remember the Zentangle mantra:
There are no mistakes in Zentangle.
What’s perceived as a mistake can be an opportunity for creativity, a chance to fill in the gaps with our own personality, to add our unique flair.
I’ve been a perfectionist my entire life. But as I’ve aged — whether because of practicing mindfulness or simply getting older and giving considerably fewer f**ks — I’m learning to let go, or at least loosen perfectionism’s grip.
Each time the ink spills or the lines go crooked, I remind myself: what feels like a mistake can lead somewhere unexpected.
And that feels better than perfect ever could.
A version of this story originally appeared in Behind the Words on Medium.
© 2025 Krista Schumacher
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Patience. Too little of it in the world.
Love the "direction" this took! Lol. You know what's funny is that I took a class in calligraphy during covid. I got up at an ungodly hour because it was a Zoom class that took place in London. It was very cool and I tried. I had a pen pal or two, but unfortunately, my pen and ink sit in a box in a drawer somewhere. I like this idea of the drawings! I need to take the box out of the drawar and set it somewhere so that it's not a process to get at them.....I'm keeping this on my list of creative things to do! You may have just given my supplies CPR!