Today’s prompt: Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
I’d like to blame my mother for the fact that I don’t do crafts, but it’s hard to sustain the blame when I remember all the effort she put in. She tried to teach me crocheting, embroidering, and sewing. Despite years of mangled efforts at home which were encouraged no matter how bad they were, I still managed to fail sewing in high school. My mother put the little felt ornaments I sewed together with yarn on her tree, but the home ec teacher did not share the pride.
Luckily, I didn’t take a real sewing class. I only took a life skills class that included a unit on sewing. I failed that unit. I don’t think I failed every life skill, but my memory may not be the most trustworthy on the matter. Probably, I would have blocked it out if I had failed every life skill, but for now I’m taking comfort in the fact that I have managed to live on my own for twenty years. Maybe there is a life skill in me.
That skill just isn’t crafts. It isn’t even cooking to be honest. I can cook enough to get by. I just don’t bother all that much. I made an apple for my supper tonight. And before you feel sorry for me or wonder if I’m anorexic, let me add that tomorrow I have a department Christmas party for lunch and a family birthday event for dinner. Any calories neglected tonight will be more than compensated tomorrow.
I don’t make stuff. I just don’t. I make trouble. I make differences. I make change. I don’t make stuff.
I’ve decided to blame the fact that I’m left-handed. You try learning to crochet as a left-handed kid based on instructions passed down through generations of right-handed women. You would fail Life Skills too. It’s like being craft-dyslexic. I just can’t reverse the instructions in my head fast enough to follow them.
Maybe that’s why I like to make so many words. Once people got over trying to put the purple crayon in the other little fist, I did okay with words. Words work the way everything is supposed to work–by starting on the left side.
Thus, the thing I made was a book of poetry. My materials were words. What I would like to make if I could only clear the time is another book of poetry. All I need now are the words. I’m trying to stockpile some right now by reading books. Though stockpiling words for me is a little like saving money. I mean well, but I still spend most of it on useless junk before I can save up for the things I really want or need.
This is why I had to tell the bank not to let me access my saving account with a debit card. Maybe I should start a savings account for words that I can’t access on a whim either.
Or maybe I’ll just keep blogging indiscriminately and see what happens. I might as well. I gave up making felt Christmas ornaments years ago. I need something to do with my hands through the holiday break.
