Number 12, Number 12

I've just returned from the CD manufacturer's office, where I needed to approve the press proofs for my album cover. I've been feeling rather behind on all of this.

Despite my best intentions, the CD is being delivered later than I'd planned or expected. As usual, I'm feeling as if I haven't done everything quite well enough, or met the targets I'd intended. The subway has a sign posted everywhere that says "Mind the Gap!" But, plunging ahead semi-consciously as I often do, I sometimes miss the fact that there's a difference between what I expect and what I get, or how perfectly I plan to do something and how well I actually do.

Anyway, back to those number 12s. There are two of them. Two track "#12"s listed on the back of the album cover. The songs are called "Feels Like Spring" (and today it does in Toronto, if you count a chilly rain as spring-like) and "Pennies". "Pennies" is the last song on the record. It's supposed to be Number 13. But it's Number 12. It's another Number 12.

I considered holding up the whole operation to make that Number 12 a 13. Turns out it would have cost me more to do that. Not just "Pennies". More like "Fifty Dollars".

I had painstakingly proofread the text ahead of time, of course. But I hadn't seen it.

Had that extra Number 12 mysteriously manifested itself during the printing process? No. It had just slipped in...a little chink in my armour, a little giggle of a reminder (at the very end of the record too, and on a song about little tiny things) that I can't control everything...that being imperfect is part of the deal...that "mistakes" are woven into the fabric of life.

Maybe my Number 12 is an example of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which acknowledges three basic truths: nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect.

Suddenly I realize that I've managed to end (not end) my project, well, imperfectly perfectly. Some people might even think I did it on purpose. (Or maybe they'll think I'm superstitious about the Number 13.)

But of course, it wasn't intentional. In order for something to be truly imperfect, it has to be done accidentally, doesn't it?

Anyway, right now I consider my extra Number 12 a happy accident. And a reminder that the universe is unfolding as it should.