Beating Myself Up Over The Gossipers

Published on by J. Kelland Perry

Les chuchoteuses (English: “The Gossipers”) is a 2002 bronze outdoor sculpture by Rose-Aimée Bélanger installed along Montreal’s Rue Saint-Paul, in Quebec, Canada.

I took the above photo ten years ago on my second visit to the beautiful city of Montreal. I’ve been beating myself up ever since for cutting off the middle gossiper’s toes!

Here’s a pic of the full sculpture from Wikipedia, toes and all:

Perhaps I should take the advice of this quote:

“Don’t beat yourself up for not being perfect. But you might want to kick your own ass
if you’re not trying to get better.” – Hal Elrod

By the way, I stopped beating myself over real gossipers a long time ago. 🙂

42 thoughts on “Beating Myself Up Over The Gossipers”

  2. What a fun statue! But as a woman, my hope is that somewhere near there’s one where three MEN are gossiping. I have found that men like to gossip just as much as women – only in their case it’s called ‘hashing things out,’ or ‘business talk.’
    Funny about perfection. Never possible, and imperfection can be a heck of a lot more interesting… xo

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    1. Pam, you’re absolutely right about that. When we were in Italy, it was quite common to see groups of men out dining or drinking and talking nonstop, and apparently it was common to leave the women at home. Some men I know personally are huge gossips.
      And yes, perfection is highly overrated.
      xo

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  3. Perfection is scary. Your picture connects more strongly with me, because I’d have committed the same mistake – and only because I would want to fill my day with more sights and smells and sounds 🙂 Perfectionists spend a lot of time trying to get things right and then fretting over every little thing that they couldn’t. BTW, did you notice, in your picture, the expressions on their faces are clearer and stronger?

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    1. You raise an excellent point. Think of those Instagrammers who are always snapping perfect pics to show everyone, but this pretty much means they seldom live in the moment. Most likely I took an imperfect photo because I was too busy “filling my day with more sights and smells and sounds.” 🙂
      My photo is from a different angle so you can see their expressions better. So I did get that right! Thanks so much for dropping by with your comment!

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      1. Absolutely 🙂 and you are welcome. I’m not a perfectionist and I think it makes me a happier person. I’ve seen how the quest for perfection results in a continuous stream of stress.

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  7. I so enjoyed this post. I first came across Les Chuchoteuses by chance on a 2015 trip to Montreal,. was back this this summer and sought them out this time for a little visit. They didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know … 🙂

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  11. I like how you said in real life you have gotten over the gossipers – but whew – they do exist – and I ran into one last year at a funeral and finally saw her true colors (from last times of seeing her mouth in action) and I walked away realizing this was the biggest gossiper I knew.
    And wonderful photo – even without the toes and did not even notice at first

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