“It Distresses Us To Return Work Which Is Not Perfect”

In an interview he did in 2007, Peter O’Toole, that beautiful, blue eyed, scalawag actor, was asked the question, “What do you want written on your tombstone”?

He leaned back and told the story of his beloved tattered leather jacket.
He said it was soaked in sweat, covered in blood, Guinness and cornflakes?!
Which of course made it his favorite.
Eventually it went to the cleaners.
It came back with a note pinned to it, that all these years later still made him chuckle.
It read:

“It distresses us to return work which is not perfect”

That’s was his answer, and I couldn’t agree more!
Because otherwise, what’s the point!?

When I leave this mortal coil, I want to be “distressed.”
I want to show I’ve lived.
That perhaps it wasn’t a pure and “perfect” life, but dammit! It was a life well lived!

Just like his jacket, I want to be worn in, with the wrinkles and scars to prove it.
I want to be covered in sweat, and dog hair, with smeared lipstick and wine stains.
…Maybe even cornflakes!

I want unpaid parking tickets in the pockets.
Along with a motorcycle key and a wad of foreign currency.

I want the leather to smell like a combination of caramel,tobacco, Shalimar, and coffee,
I want it left on the back of a chair in George Clooney’s suite in a Paris Hotel.

I want to remain perfectly imperfect.

Then I want to be “returned to sender, postage due.”

How about you?
Xox