A little while ago, Anne encouraged me to start sitting in on Handwork class once a week or so. When I can, I do. And I learn. When one of the children in handwork class groans in exasperation and claims, "I can't *do* this! This is *hard*!" my first impulse is to come back immediately with a chipper, "Sure you can! You can do it!" Mrs. Mason's response to this situation? "Yes, it *is* hard! It's very hard!" And that is all. And it is true. I've never knitted in my life and when she handed me two wooden needles and a little roll of yarn, my fingers suddenly turned into sausages. What side door? Run around the how? In through which window, and where is Jack popping off to? Now when I hear Avella say that pearling is hard, I'm not so flippant with my auto-response encouragement. There is something dismissing about it, I realized. Especially coming from someone who has no idea what a struggle it really is. Now I sit next to her with my gorilla hands and my ten measly stitches and I say, "You bet this is hard!"
When I first heard Thea validating the children's experience in this way, with the simplest mirroring of their own expression, I felt something alight inside me. Maybe it was that little bird that tends to flutter around seeking to be seen, and heard. It wants to know that its experience is real, and its feelings are valid. To not be able to rest in validation is exhausting. More exhausting than the difficulty of the task at hand -- whatever it might be.
So yes, it is hard. But the children don't give up. And stitch by stitch the "hard" becomes something patterned, whole, and beautiful.
Breath by breath,
facing the obstacle,
seeing the obstacle,
naming the obstacle...
the fingers persist,
and life is woven.
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