On Confidence

When I started high school, one of the pictures I had hanging up in my locker was of ice hockey legend Jaromir Jagr sporting his curling black mullet, which was, like his offensive weaponry, at the height of its power. A friend had cut the image from her own Sports Illustrated issue for me, a piece of paper not even larger than a hockey puck, somewhere between a joke and a gift. The only time I ever got to see the Penguins play in those days was during the playoffs, when games hit network TV, but being from Pennsylvania, even in the middle-of-nowhere-midstate where my parents’ house didn’t get coverage from Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and a kid interested in sports in the 1990s, my love of the Penguins was pretty well preordained.

And by virtue of being so much on the fringes of coverage, my fandom was much more conceptual than anything. I loved hockey as a sport, loved playing on ponds in the winter—no real teams available to me—and I liked penguins. Hence: Penguins fan. As such, I can’t say I knew anything about the players of the 90s team; that kind of interest didn’t settle in until college and regular access to the internet and ESPN and so on. So I missed the dramatics of Jagr’s exit from Pittsburgh in real-time, to which he alluded in a recent interview.

There’ve been some shenanigans in Jagr’s seemingly endless hockey career—the sheer fact that, at age 50, he’s still listed as an active winger for the team he owns, Rytíři Kladno, in the Czech Extraliga, is its own—and you can read about them if you like, but the overwhelming takeaway for me is the confidence. Even in the moments he’s addressing the times he was wrong—which he doesn’t admit often—he is so assured in his confidence at the time, too. Such is how he felt then: “I didn’t look left, I didn’t look right.” He couldn’t, he says now, coach himself then, but nor does he blame himself for wanting the puck, for recognizing his own prodigious talent.

In sports, there is a certain amount of confidence, even cockiness, that seems necessary to excel at the highest level. In a circumstance where decision-making time is so limited, there’s no room for hedging or imposter syndrome. In writing and teaching, there’s much less that has to be done in a split second, and I, at least, don’t find myself doing either of these things in the adrenaline-fuelled state of athletics, but I think about confidence all the time. I think of it especially in the context of drafting and revision, which I’ve been thinking about constantly of late: in my own work, in my Conversations & Connections session, and even in class this week. What a balancing act it requires, of confidence and humility, to bring a draft though its processes: enough confidence in both the work itself and in one’s own ability to see it through, enough not to give up before it has a chance to exist, but also enough humility to see it with someone else’s eyes and undertake the work of revision. Enough confidence to allow a piece to be done.

I don’t know that I’m looking at Jagr as any kind of model here, except to say that if he can have so much confidence even in a retrospective of certain flaws and foibles, the rest of us struggling with imposter syndrome, et cetera, should surely be able to find at least a little.

And, since the NHL season is underway and I am not panicking, I will also have enough confidence that the Penguins’ current slump is a temporary matter. There’s a lot of hockey left. Who are you rooting for, as winter sports seasons settle in?

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What I’m making: Charkha adventures!I located a used book charkha in one of the Ravelry spinning forums I’m on. Obviously, what I absolutely need is yet another way to make yarn.

A charkha has a very high twist ratio (how much the spindle spins per rotation of the larger wheel), so it is good for spinning fine/short fibers into thin singles. Yes, one could make thread with this. My goal is to eventually spin enough to do some tablet weaving using my own fine yarns. But for now, in the little scrapings of time the semester is offering, I’m simply enjoying how pleasant it is to use and how much like magic such fine spinning seems.

What I’m reading: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’FarrellThis is one of those novels I really don’t want to spoil, but it’s so good. Basic premise: what if Browning’s “My Last Duchess” was a novel? The writing is absolutely lush and vivid, and perhaps fittingly for a novel much invested in the idea of portraiture, the character treatments are rich and layered. It’s not overly long for a historical novel, but every person in the book is fully alive on the page. I took this book with me to my annual check-up and was sneaking in pages between height/weight check and the blood pressure check.

What I’m writing: You already know about the revision. But, since it’s applying-for-grad-school time, I’m also writing letters of recommendation for current and former students, which, though time-consuming, is also a pleasure. It’s a chance to remember the accomplishments and skills of my students, and think about the possibilities that lie ahead for them, which is also a way of thinking about hope.