Imperfect Writing is Better than No Writing

To Cheryl—

An afternoon of poetry is always a special day. Thank you for the special day.

Best Wishes,

Ted Borrillo

I find that inscription, dated, May 16, 1996, on the first page of Beyond Loneliness: Poems by Theodore A. Borillo, which I just took off the the bottom shelf of the bookcase at the end of the upstairs hallway.

I don’t remember specifics of my interview with Mr. Borrillo, a retired Denver lawyer who had long been writing poetry, but I do recall that he was handsome, gracious, kind, and solicitous of my well-being and of the little one I was expecting in about three months. He told me about his wife, his children, his grandchildren, his career, and his writing. Since the article was to appear in The Denver Catholic Register, where I would be employed until the birth of that little one I was then carrying on the inside, I imagine we also talked about his faith, at least a little.

We sat outside at the former seminary that the Archdiocese of Denver had just purchased from the Vincentian order. It was a beautiful campus at the edge of the Bonnie Brae neighborhood in Denver, where I long wanted to live in a brick Tudor house. The sun shined over the grass, the walls, the buildings of this place that was so different from the office building in Cherry Creek, where I worked on the fifth floor, across from Sister Mary Hughes, a beautiful, gentle woman in charge of the archives. Despite my upcoming resignation, I would come to know the new place well, and the day’s gentle breeze must have been carrying the sent of flowering trees and fresh beginnings.

I’ve read Beyond Loneliness more than once, and years after it was given to me, I found a second book of Borrillo’s poetry somewhere and bought it. They’re both lovely, little volumes printed on parchment colored paper and illustrated with drawings at the beginning of each section.

While the inscription that the poet wrote by hand just for me is nice, I prefer the dedication printed in the book:

To those

Who can hear a heartbeat
a thousand miles away

Who are not ashamed to cry
for sadness and for joy

Who have been on mountain tops
in search of truth.

To those

Who are among the lonely.

Before that dedication, though, Borrillo has given us this:

To seek perfection is to invite
frustration. It is the imperfections
of life that make life beautiful, for
they cause us to look to what is
beyond. And what is beyond loneliness,
but joy and hope and peace.

I guess the man was wise, too, and although I’ve long pontificated on perfectionism and the way it derails hope, I am just now learning to appreciate problems and let them take me where I need to go, no matter how unexpected the destination turns out to be.