A word from Michelangelo

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

Michelangelo Buonarroti

I find this an extraordinary quote from an extraordinary - almost mythical - person. It was attached to my daily painting - a detail from the Sistine Chapel and perhaps not his most well-known bit of it, but well-known - all his work is - and just about perfect anyway. Here it is. It's called the Delphic Sybil.

How, I wondered could somebody like him even think that his aim was too low - because that is the implication of the quote is it not? I mean just look at that self-portrait. Such a sad face for such achievement. And how can you convey such feeling with paint and brushes?

But never mind Michelangelo - this particular quote made me feel just a tiny bit depressed and curiously, it was in relation to cooking. Here's the leap. I was trying to think of what to cook for dinner, and I just couldn't think of anything particularly interesting or different, and then whatever it was I cooked in the end, was Ok but not really all that special. So first of all I had aimed low and secondly I hadn't even reached my low target. And I got to thinking how much more adventurous I was when young. I would try new things, and sometimes I even produced something really good - even if it was somebody else's recipe. So I suppose even then the aim was low - I wasn't inventing and creating new things by myself. I never have - except for my beautiful children of course - but that was chance not design.

As I have aged I have become more and more ordinary and more and more stuck in my ways. When I was doing all my family history research and putting together the stories of my ancestors - mostly very ordinary people, I became struck by how extraordinary virtually all of these ordinary people were. They overcame enormous difficulties and tragedies, and just soldiered on - they may even have been happy. Impossible to know that. Just about every one of them had something extraordinary in their lives. To my eyes anyway. But I don't think I could say that of myself. Yes, I have had a few personal mishaps and difficulties along the way, but trivial ones really. I have generally led a fortunate and lucky life. But very ordinary. I'm a suburban housewife and always have been, even when I worked.

And yes there are small happinesses and miracles along the way, but today, and since I came across that quote, I am not thinking well of myself. And I also know, which is even more depressing, that I am most likely not going to change. I am not going to be a pink grapefruit:

But hey - the sun is shining and my family are coming to lunch. A barbecue, of sausages and pork chops with apple and blackberry crumble. Very ordinary, but maybe delicious. I hope so.