Sharing An Old Love...

Get me started on art, painting, drawing, and I can go on (and I have!) about my first canvases of rocks and old papers reused to allow me expressions in pencils... but I know I have neglected crochet.  I wasn't certain why at first... after all, I've crocheted since I was a little girl.  I have made scarves, rebozos, and head wraps; I've made purses and blankets, as well, and have gifted them for birthdays and Christmas.

Rebozo Head Wrap

The more that I've thought about this, I realize I have a reluctance to express the pattern making, or lack thereof.  One of the first questions people ask is whether I follow a pattern, which I never do.  Si, yo lo se, Yes, I know there is nothing embarrassing about that in itself, after all I'm a self-taught artist, also, as many people are,  However, that question always sets off a response that I swallow quietly, that I keep hidden.  It is the fact that I cannot follow a pattern.  The abbreviations and repeated numbers become confusing and can bring on a migraine.  Most directions, whether it is setting up a sewing machine (I almost broke mine trying to thread the bobbin without use of the manual) or anything else, become confusing, I often have to repeat them aloud to make any headway, and the frustration takes me back to sitting in class, in particular math class, where nothing ever made since, and I would take my place at the back of the room, praying never to be called upon.

One teacher did take it upon herself to tell me I had dyslexia, but the more I read on that subject, I was not convinced.  I can read perfectly fine, and understand what I'm reading.  True, every now and then I intermingle words in the wrong order, and can see nothing wrong with a sentence or paragraph until a few days later, then I wonder what the hell I was thinking.  But I never see the letters themselves as backward.  No, none of the glaring symptoms were present.  What was wrong was following directions in certain steps, and if there are too many numbers I have to repeat them aloud many times to ensure I don't get them in the wrong order.  I am often convinced my left is my right, my right is my left, not just for a minute of confusion, someone can point out that I've got it wrong, and I still can't recognize the error.  It can be maddening, and for those long-ago school days it left most everyone convinced I was a very stupid child.  Which didn't help since I was already the very strange child.

Not until I was much older, my early thirties actually, was I diagnosed with dyscalculia, dyslexia's sister of sorts.  Knowing this helped alleviate some of my anguish (if not my frustration) with my struggle, yet I remain hesitant to ever divulge or discuss it.  There is also a reason it is so closely related to crocheting:

Rebozo Flower Pin

Growing up, the women on their way to church wore candy-colored rebozos that I absolutely adored.  My mother herself had a bright pink rebozo that had such a loose weave it looked a bit like crochet.  I would wrap myself in her rebozo and feel bright and beautiful.  I soon began playing with the crocheted doilies on the end tables, until I realized one of them was quite frayed and falling apart.  At first I was afraid to point this out least I be suspected of having ruined it, but my temptation was too great, and I asked my mother if I could take it apart to reuse the thread.  I wanted her to teach me to crochet.  To my surprise and delight she agreed.  Pulling a medium-size woven basket from the closet, she found her hook, carefully snipped at the doilie to recover as much thread as possible and began the task.

She showed me a few basic stitches, and once she was sure I knew what a chain, single and double crochet stitch were, she wrote out the design on a piece of paper.  She left me to it for about an hour, returned and asked to see how far I had gotten.  I hadn't followed the pattern, the repeats and numbers confused me, so I had freehanded my own.  She was not happy.  My mother was rarely happy.  She unravelled my work, and set me to follow the pattern again.  When she returned, saw that I hadn't followed the pattern, she unravelled my work once more, and put the thread and hook back in the closet.  I was no longer allowed to touch either.

Rebozo Head Wraps

For days afterwards I would find time to sneak in her closet leaving the door opened just a crack, allowing enough light to see what I was doing.  I worked and reworked the thread, figuring out her intricately patterned doilie by studying its companion.  There were many re-dos but I finally I managed to get it almost right.  My stitches were loose, and I had dropped a few, but it was close enough that she would believe I had followed the pattern.  I placed it on the end table waiting to see if she would notice it.  That day could have gone horribly wrong, as many other days had.  She could have stormed and punished for having touched what was off limits... pero se sonrio, instead she smiled.  She believed that for once I had curbed my stubborn nature.  I will always remember that she remarked, "Isn't it easier when you just follow direction?"

;-)