What it Takes to be Perfect

Mama's study has always been like a temple to her. A shrine of sorts. Putri admires Mama. She
worshipped her even. It wasn’t surprising, considering the amassment of achievements Mama has
accumulated over her short yet well-lived life.

But right now, Mama's study was anything but a study. One might assume that a violent fight has
occurred in the sepia-tinted office, knocking dusty books off their shelves in the progress.

And the culprit, you may ask? It was none other than Putri herself. Mama's loyal follower. Mama's
own flesh and blood. Mama's daughter.

Enraged, Putri stood aloof in front of it. The painting of a monarch butterfly that Mama had hung on
one of her office walls. It was a symbol of growth and transformation with daunting beauty that
could make anyone in the room nauseously nervous. Even now, despite being 10 years older than
she was at the time it was hung, its eerie presence always succeeded in threatening her. It was a
masterpiece albeit its ghastliness. Millions. It must've costed her millions. She had always pondered
upon its price but never bothered checking.

As Putri closed her eyes, she could see her late mother repeating the words "Perfection, my dear.
You must be perfect, whilst admiring the artwork. "Like this painting on my wall, you must be
perfect". 8-year-old Putri took this advice to heart. She injected her blood with the words her Mama
ever so often replayed. Perfection. It was ingrained in her brain, and Putri, being Mama's clone,
never had an issue with achieving it.

Up until today.

What happened today was the reason to why Mama's office was a shipwreck. And the reason why
Putri was glaring fiercely into the canvas in which the monarch butterfly was gracefully contained.

"It's all your fault Mama!" Putri cried.

Tears rolled uncontrollably down her cheeks. She was red with anger and fuming with heat as she
unloaded a giant emotional burden in front the butterfly painting that hung on Mama's wall.

"You promised that I could be like you! You promised Mama! That I could be the doctor you were!
But look at me now. Are you proud of me Mama? Are you proud of the failure I have become?"

Tears of anger and bitterness quickly became tears of pain and sadness. Her fiery yells turned into
cries for help. She needed Mama. She needed to be in her embrace. She needed Mama to tell her
that she was proud of her, and that it’s not over yet. That her journey continues.

Earlier today, when the sun was at its peak in the cloudless sky, and when the decibels of the chirps
of the crickets increased exponentially with the temperature of the summer's day, Putri sat
nervously in front of her computer. She was waiting for an email. An email that will soon determine
the course of her future, and the result of her efforts in upholding a streak of perfect marks for the
past 10 years. She spun her pen around her thumb with her fingers, anxiously waiting for her
judgement.

Ping!

There it was! The notification from the university of her dreams glowed brightly on her screen. She
was ecstatic, yet cautious. Never in her 18 years of life has she been turned down, yet why does she
feel so nervous?

Her mouse hovered over the email that invited her to click on it and reveal to her fate. She was
reluctant.

The adrenaline was too much for Putri as she stood from her seat and began to pace around her
room, releasing tension from her limbs.

It took 10 minutes for Putri to return to her laptop and decide to open the email. With a simple click
of a button, her fate was revealed to her in the form of a letter. A rejection letter.

This sequence of events was what lead Mama's office to resemble a shipwreck.

Putri blames Mama for her feelings of disdain. Besides, it was Mama who ingrained the concept of
perfectionism in Putri's brain. Fatigued, Putri collapsed on the time-stained carpet of the office. The
afternoon glow that never failed to light the room after 3pm turned the office into a setting straight
out of a bildungsroman movie. One might call this time of day the "Golden Hour", but to Putri, it was
symbolic of where her story line ends.

Hopeless, she laid amongst the mess of books and paper. There, she stayed, examining the room for
this new angle. From this perspective, Mama's office resembled a Greek temple. The white marble
walls and pillars that glowed as a result of the "Golden Hour" gave it a heavenly hue. For a second,
Putri's mind was distracted from her suffering and instead, allowed her to admire the architecture of
Mama's office, but it didn't take long for it to instruct Putri to cry once more. The suns gentle rays
caressed Putri's tear-streaked cheeks. Though drenched, her sharp eyes, spotted a slight glisten from
behind Mama's massive bookshelf. A glisten that beckoned Putri to come forth and inspect it. Now
occupied with curiosity, Putri decided to leave her position on the floor and examine the source of
the light. It seemed to come from the drawer that Putri never had paid any mind to prior to this day.
Carefully and ever so gently, Putri tugged on the lion head knob of the antique furniture as it opened
and revealed to Putri its contents. It was a book. A book which Putri had never laid eyes on. Her
inquisitive mind ordered her to pick it up and read it.

Scanning through its contents allowed Putri to quickly to realize that the fragile book she held
delicately in her fingers was her mother’s journal. It contained entries from Mama was in university,
up until her death, which took place around 9 years ago.

January 7, 1997

I feel helpless. I can’t believe that after 7 years of studying, i didn't get a place in my dream hospital.
7 YEARS OF STUDYING. What did i do wrong!? Am i not good enough?? Sack this shit. I'm going to
drink a whole gallon of beer...
December 9, 1998

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sleep. The image of her mother’s eyes begging me to save her life
keeps haunting my dreams. The disappointment and pain that overcame her body after the news of
her daughter’s death was revealed to her. It’s my fault. It really is. I'm a murderer. I really am.
Murderers don't deserve to walk this earth. I feel so hopeless...

September 20, 2004

It really is the greatest day of my life. Today, i performed a successful coronary artery bypass graft
surgery on the Indonesian president, Mr Sukarno Hatta. Boy was i nervous. One slip could cost me my
head!

As Putri read through the journal, she realised that her mother was not the perfect, mistake-free
woman that Putri had always made her out to be. The journal held proof that Mama, just like any
other human, made mistakes. Just like any other human, Mama felt emotions of disappointment and
sadness. But unlike many other humans, Mama learnt from these mistakes and rose to become the
woman that Putri had always known her to be. A woman of power, resilience, perfection, and most
importantly, a woman of change. Multiple times in her life, Mama felt that she was unworthy, but
those moments did not put her down.

Putri flipped to the last page of the book. On it was a quote faintly embossed into the yellow of its
paper. It read "No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other
words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday".

These words hit Putri in the face with the force of a rocket engine about to take off to space. She has
come to a realisation that her anger, although justified, was extremely uncalled for. At that exact
moment, as the suns afternoon glow began to fade, Putri realised that it was time to change her
approach towards downfalls. She rose from her seated position on the floor and stood in front of the
butterfly painting. With a new sense of realisation, its former eerie aura turned into a symbol of her
Mama's growth and maturation, which will soon represent Putri's own journey of discovering what it
takes to be perfect.

REFLECTION

Imperfection is a part of perfection, and my creative piece "What it Takes to be Perfect" aims to
express this through the elaborate emotions and experience of a young girl, Putri. Like many other
young people, Putri strives to achieve sublimity, yet is powerless against the innate incapability of
becoming a perfect being. My creative piece aims to express the idea that flaws are what makes
someone human and thus, without imperfections, one is no longer considered a perfect human. The
piece, in my opinion, serves as a reminder to those that tirelessly aim for academic excellence that a
single failure does not equate to a complete loss but rather, serves as sense of renewed motivation to
aim higher.
To consolidate my creative piece, i drew inspiration from the works of Judith Wright's poem, "The
Surfer". "The Surfer" heavily influenced most of the choices within my own piece of work such as in
regard to style, language, and techniques.

Within Wright's poem she utilises an omniscient narrator to elaborately narrate the experiences of the
surfer, allowing the reader to see beyond the surfers peripherals (e.g. "How his brown strength drove
through the hollow and coil of green-through weirs of water!"). I too, implemented a first person
narration approach in my creative, allowing readers to see what Putri cannot, which is the perfection
that comes with failure. Through the eyes of an omniscient narrator, readers are able to view the raw
emotions felt by Putri as she struggles to navigate through her feelings of anger and loathe towards
her mother and towards her own incompetence.

Additionally, Wright had utilised visual imagery within her poem to offer her readers an alternate
description of simple events to heighten and enhance the way she communicated it. Within ‘The
Surfer’, she could have simply written ‘the sun setting’, yet uniquely described it as the ‘Last leaf of
gold vanish(ing) from the sea-curve’. There are many instances within my own piece where I
attempted to create a similar effect as Wright to enhance my communication with the reader, such as
when I mentioned that "the afternoon glow that never failed to light the room after 3pm turned the
office into a setting straight out of a bildungsroman movie" instead of simply stating that the "sun has
set". The visual imagery was utilised to absorb the reader with the nostalgically warm hues of the
afternoon setting, but from an artistic point of view to understand that the colour went beyond than
just being what is seen by the eye, but also in its effect on the persona due to its sheer beauty.