Blocked and knotted
When the semester began in January it seemed like for every New Year's resolution I made, there was a student organization to help me keep it. I resolved to write more--two students asked me to faculty-advise their new creative writing club. I resolved to learn to knit--a coworker started a weekly "needlecraft group" and even gave me yarn, needles, and a personal lesson to get me started.
Of course, now it's February and I'm discovering anew that it's easier to make resolutions than to keep them. Creative writing club finally got off the ground last week after some difficulty with scheduling and advertising. Rather than starting with a group writing exercise, as had been the original plan, it was decided that we should each bring something we're working on to share on Wednesday. Great for the people who have been writing regularly, but for those of us just getting back into it, it's a little more daunting. You'd think being ten years older than the rest of the group and a quasi-authority figure would make this easier for me, but no such luck. I've been trying off and on all week to come up with something and then getting intimidated by the idea that I'm going to have to read it out loud.
Knitting has also been an uphill battle. I've attended two group knitting sessions, where I stumbled along with frequent coaching from my self-appointed teacher. The problem comes when I go home and attempt to continue on my own. The group meets on Fridays; by the following Saturday both weeks I was stuck and had to start over under her tutelage the following week. I'm trying not to get discouraged, but it's a little embarrassing, especially since most of the other participants are seasoned veterans.
After last week's frustrations I started mentally writing something that compared learning to knit to learning to speak a foreign language, since I feel like I'm stuttering over syllables while the others in the group are fluent. But I didn't have a pen on the train while I was composing it and when I got home I was derailed by a cupcake-baking fiasco (story for another time). So I never got it down on paper and now I'm having trouble recapturing it.
February can be so frustrating. I laugh at how my gym, which was full to bursting the first few weeks of January, is getting back to normal now as the resolution-prone are giving up. But I can understand the impulse. Saturday night I was practically in tears over a stupid ball of yarn, and last night I was cursing at the keyboard. At least I have the groups to hopefully keep me going at both pursuits.
Of course, now it's February and I'm discovering anew that it's easier to make resolutions than to keep them. Creative writing club finally got off the ground last week after some difficulty with scheduling and advertising. Rather than starting with a group writing exercise, as had been the original plan, it was decided that we should each bring something we're working on to share on Wednesday. Great for the people who have been writing regularly, but for those of us just getting back into it, it's a little more daunting. You'd think being ten years older than the rest of the group and a quasi-authority figure would make this easier for me, but no such luck. I've been trying off and on all week to come up with something and then getting intimidated by the idea that I'm going to have to read it out loud.
Knitting has also been an uphill battle. I've attended two group knitting sessions, where I stumbled along with frequent coaching from my self-appointed teacher. The problem comes when I go home and attempt to continue on my own. The group meets on Fridays; by the following Saturday both weeks I was stuck and had to start over under her tutelage the following week. I'm trying not to get discouraged, but it's a little embarrassing, especially since most of the other participants are seasoned veterans.
After last week's frustrations I started mentally writing something that compared learning to knit to learning to speak a foreign language, since I feel like I'm stuttering over syllables while the others in the group are fluent. But I didn't have a pen on the train while I was composing it and when I got home I was derailed by a cupcake-baking fiasco (story for another time). So I never got it down on paper and now I'm having trouble recapturing it.
February can be so frustrating. I laugh at how my gym, which was full to bursting the first few weeks of January, is getting back to normal now as the resolution-prone are giving up. But I can understand the impulse. Saturday night I was practically in tears over a stupid ball of yarn, and last night I was cursing at the keyboard. At least I have the groups to hopefully keep me going at both pursuits.
posted by Madame Defarge at 9:33 AM
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