Perfect is Boring

         Harpeth Hall alumna, Bridget Bailey’s “Friendly Imperfections” initially stuck out to me because Madeline was my absolute favorite book as a child. As I continued to read the poem, I found that I related to Bailey’s recount of childhood ideals being reevaluated as one grows into adulthood. In Madeline, the twelve students at Madeline’s boarding school eat, brush their teeth, and even sleep in two straight lines. While the author of the Madeline books spends a great deal of time concentrating on the extreme order of Madeline’s and her friends’ lives, it seems interesting that the main character is Madeline, a girl who is noticeably intrepid and unconventional. In the story, Madeline comes to appreciate the crack in the ceiling because it resembles a rabbit. The reader and perhaps Bailey as well, grow to love Madeline for her bold, independent ways. Bailey writes that she/the speaker was so influenced by Madeline’s story that she found an “Iguana on the kitchen table” and a “Vulture in the cellophane”. 

A key point in “Friendly Imperfections” is when Bailey writes “Said the art teacher one day,/Unintentional likenesses must be/eradicated”. Thus, she speaker realizes that conformity is negative and that unconventionality and imperfection are increasingly more interesting than perfection. This was a major revelation for the speaker as she writes afterwards, “And the walls came tumbling down.” The speaker realizes that flaws and differences are to be celebrated and not condemned. She realizes that people like Madeline are so much more interesting than her classmates (sorry childhood characters) because she makes her own path. When Bailey writes that “the walls came tumbling down”, it seems likely that she was referring to the standards that society sets on people, especially women. When people stray from the probity that our society has established, such individuals face backlash and sometimes social exclusion. People feel confined by the pressure to be perfect and often fail to realize that imperfect people are usually the most interesting and enjoyable to be around.

My mom said a few years ago that she read Madeline to me when I was little because Madeline was tough. She was no push over. I think that if we can see the world through Bailey’s and Madeline’s view that we will be much better off than before. Imperfections and originality are to be celebrated. If we make mistakes along the way, it will be alright because it means that we are truly living. 

"Friendly Imperfections"

by Bridget Bailey

When I was young

In Madeline I read

Of a ceiling crack that had the habit 

Of sometimes looking like

a rabbit.

I found a fine menagerie instead: 

Iguana on the kitchen table,

Scuff-mark Alligator,

Vulture in the cellophane

Like clouds but better

Because they stuck around,

The oaken door

home to Hound.

Said the art teacher one day,

Something's not quite right. 

Unintentional likenesses must be 

eradicated. 

And the walls came tumbling down.