Opinion : Grandmother, What green eyes you have

For some, the idea of putting together a project without the directions is right up there with lawbreaking.

For the rest of us, it's like Christmas! Ripping open a package filled with 100 parts, the excitement is in trying to figure out how they fit together. 

Sure, sometimes you end up with extra pieces, which tells me that they should have consulted one of my types to cut the production costs. And sometimes the shelf my look a little wonky, but it still works...

I found out at 12 that I was a sight learner. As my mom tried to teach me to sew, she opened the pattern, took out all the pieces and handed me the sewing guide. Note the word "guide."  I immediately began to unfold the pieces of the pattern and tried to figure out how they went together. Asking, "What's a front interfacing?"

My mom would reply, "Read the instructions."

"I can, but what does it do and where does it go?" I'd reply.

After several minutes of being hounded, she'd explain that it went down the front of the shirt/jacket/dress and made the piece of material thicker so that you could put buttonholes in it, or just so the piece of fabric had more body to it. I never understood why we did the dance. It always seemed easier and faster to just show me what I needed to do rather than hand me a book of directions.

This is I'm sure why I never understood Algebra...and apparently it's something that I could live without.

In school, I sat near a window. I studied solar panels, watched cars drive by, observed squirrels peeling the shell off a nut as if it were nothing, watched a bird build a nest and got in trouble for not doing my school work.

In another class I was assigned a seat in the back of the class where I studied how the girls fixed their hair, the way clothes were made, the swishing trails left on the chalkboard and counted the stars on the flag, noted the ceiling tiles that were stained and always counted how many were in the ceiling, and of COURSE when you are done with the ceiling, you start on the floor tiles, then you check out the crooked picture on the wall and wonder if it has a wire across the back or a notch that's not centered.

And yes, I pulled C's and D's in most of my classes.

It's why I sit in the front row at church. In this day and age the technology that brings the big screens to the service plays the biggest distractions now. As the songs pop up on the screen it's either because I'm designing ads that I pay attention to backgrounds or it's the above. 

Sunday, I have no idea what the song was, all I could think was, "Is that a picture of sand? It kind of looks like an ultrasound...hmm what IS that, and it's blue, I wonder how they did that. Oh, they probably ran it through photoshop and adjusted the hue saturation, or maybe it was just blue sand?"

The same thing happens with stained glass windows. I love those things, I could stare at them for hours and not hear a word that the preacher says. I want to know how the window was made, how did they find the right color of glass, how many pieces are in it, how many joints did they have to solder to make one picture and it always ends with the thought of what I'd make if I were making one.

I was reminded of my world this weekend while babysitting. Repeatedly, I'd tell someone to put their shoes on so we could leave and seriously began to wonder if the child suffered from hearing loss, as I tried to corral her. 

Remembering that I had seen her mom do this little trick and also one I had used with a certain little boy, I put my hand under her chin and said, "Look at me." As I looked her straight in the eye and told her what I wanted her to do, I went to step two. "Now what did grandma say?"

"Grandma! You have green eyes!" she said, so delighted to have learned something new and fascinating.

I laughed and tried that again.

Hand under chin making eye contact, I repeated the instructions, the second time it took. 

All weekend there was a running commentary of what she saw. And repeatedly, "Come and see!" requests from various parts of the house. 

Then I remembered that I had to learn a new song on the bass. Usually, it's not a problem.  The bass for me is an instrument that I employ my hearing in general. But this new song has some unique style in it that I feel a bit unsure about. I know that it's going to be another of those, "You have to show me" situations. (I should have been born in Missouri)

So the next time you get a little frustrated that your child isn't pulling in the grades that you think they should, or you have a child that you just can't seem to wrangle, perhaps they "won't" read the directions, or your bass player just can't seem to "get it" remember there are some of us that need to "see" what you're saying. 

Do we need the shades close, the screens blank and what seems obvious to you pointed out, maybe. On the flip side, we can accomplish quite a bit on a computer with 25 browser windows up.