Mind Retrofit

Archive for January 15th, 2010

I have written about some of the things I can’t do so on this one I thought maybe I should write some things that I am good at. True I am not the type who is good with her hands or creative with materials, but I can come up with ideas for crafts or suggestions of paintings for my mom. I see visions of paintings and I describe them to her, I see the colors and it seems to come alive. The great thing is that my mom can see it too and has been able to paint them on occasion. I see craft ideas for the kids but I don’t know how to implement them so once again I go to my mom for help and she is able to tell me what I need and the best way to do it. We are a pretty good team.

I have always seen in pictures, I have vibrant, detailed, and intriguing dreams.

I write stories, I see them play out like a movie in my head and there are tiny details that give the story a bit more intrigue. I have had dreams that have come alive in stories that I write. I haven’t really shared a lot of my stories though. Some of them I get to a certain point and I am just unable to finish. The reason for me not finishing them is that I get engrossed, I go into that world and it is hard for me to come out into my real world. I feel that is an injustice to my kids, I need to be focused on them right now, as they get older I will have more freedom to write. I get enough down so when I go back and re-read them I can step right back into that world and write away.

The computer has been my hand saver.

My whole life I have written, I have written poems, songs, stories, prayers and journals. I have notebooks full of my writings, tons of them. Though I would write often it came with a price because my hands would hurt so bad. When I get in a writing mode I can’t stop and I wouldn’t really notice the pain until after I was finished. So now having a computer to be able to type has been great. I can type away and have no problems. I requested a computer when I was about 10 yrs old and to my surprise my mother did get it for me. It was a Texas Instrument but my main use for it was writing. I did enjoy figuring out the computer and playing some of the games but most of the time you could find me writing on it.

I wrote stories and journals on my computer.

My computer understood me and it stayed with me for a long time until I upgraded to a new nicer PC. However the PC belonged to my mom so when I moved out at 18 yrs old I couldn’t take it with me so I had to turn to the good old pen and paper. The computer, that brings me to another thing I am really good at, research. I love to study and research. I really enjoy reading other peoples books or blogs about things I have never heard of before and gaining new information that I can share with the world. I say world because anything I learn I tend to tell everyone I know about all of this new found info and expect them to be as excited and interested in it as myself. I have found that is not the case.

Except for David, he is always interested in my new findings just as I am in his new findings.

I have a great love for music, all kinds of music. Music is something that wraps around me, it spreads into my very being, it feeds something in my brain that has the ability to bring me peace and comfort. I can find this feeling in almost any music, there are certain types that I cannot listen to, if the music has no real depth, it seems to be violent or shallow I really can’t get into that and it will even make me angry. I find that a great waste of talent in some people and I find music to be something we should respect just like any art. If I feel like it is not respecting the art of music it upsets me. I don’t really know how to explain that so I hope that makes sense.

One reason why I love music so much is because I am a dancer.

Music just flows through my body and I dance. Dancing makes me so happy, it is a joy that has no words. Dancing has helped me throughout my whole life. I feel that dancing is like telling a story with your body so I guess that is why it fits me. I write and I dance I tell a story with my mind and I tell a story through movement of body. I am not a professional by any means but I have studied on my own, the movements of the body. As a child I did want to be a ballerina but not for the same reasons as other little girls, I wanted to so I could learn how to express my story in another way. I am probably not the only one who feels that way but when I was in class with the little girls who were  not taking it as seriously as I was, that was the conclusion I came to.

Unfortunately, my mother being a single mother was not able to continue my classes because of lack of funds and she didn’t think it was a big deal.

She did not understand what it meant to me, if I would have been able to explain to her that dancing for me, was like art to her, I think she would have gotten it. My dream stopped there but I have kept on dancing and I am moved to tears to watch people dance when they are telling a story.  I encourage my children to dance, sing, write, tell stories, and listen to music. I write a lot of poetry and that seems to be another avenue in which I feel I can express myself and my stories. I love poetry, as I read it I see in my mind a dance play out or a story. I feel the words,  they jump into me and I feel alive. When I am able to write a poem that flows like a song and dance to me revealing my feelings, I am completely satisfied, I am in a place of perfect peace and contentment. I feel like I am good at these things because they come naturally. I feel like they are a part of me being shared with others and it feels as though some of me is gone.

I don’t mean that in a bad way, it is good. I am sharing me despite my whole life being told not to, I still am and it feels scary but good and satisfying.

Most children love the arts & crafts time, I remember in grade school, on art day everyone was so happy and excited. I was not, I actually dreaded those days. I did enjoy music day and really got into music class, too much sometimes. On the subject of using any kind of substance that may get on my hands or having to cut things, that makes me uptight and a bit uneasy. My mother is an artist, she paints amazing paintings, she can decorate anything, crafts just flow out of her with ease, she is a seamstress also, and she crochets among a few of her talents.

That was a bit frustrating for me growing up and not to mention having to do these types of things.

I think it is incredible, I love to watch, I do enjoy the outcome of the end master piece but everyone else can do it, not me. I find it to be very stressful, I am not good at it so why would I continue to force myself to try something that just doesn’t flow out of me easily? One time as a teenager my mother was trying to get me to find a hobby, everything she mentioned was of no interest but finally I caved and agreed to make myself a dress. It was the most simple dress you can image, my mother could make it in less than an hour, complete, ironed and everything. It took me something like two weeks I believe.

I did not find it fun in the least bit and I felt like such a failure.

Why couldn’t I do what other girls and women seemed so good at? Why was I unable to flow in the artsy stuff? Why didn’t like doing it? Why did it stress me out and even at times make me cry in frustration? My average grade in art class was a C, I passed through on a thread each year and my teacher couldn’t stand me, I was lucky enough to have her my entire grade school career. I did get an A- once, I made a coil art piece with yarn. We had the choice of making a bowl or something flat, I made a big coiled circle with beige and dark green yarn. I loved it, come to think of it I was making a spinning object and was wrapping the yarn around the coil, I find that soothing. No wonder I enjoyed it and got an A-.

It was something like this.

Now that I have children and home school I have to force myself to do the Arts & Crafts thing.

Ariel loves it, Joshua gets into it for a while, but he is only 3 yrs old so I don’t expect to keep his interest too long, Daniel about 98% of the time wants nothing to do with any of it, I can relate. I do enjoy spending time with my children while doing these things but I seem to rush through to get the end result as quickly as possible. I then find myself hurrying to clean up the mess because it is making me nervous, some days are better than others I can keep myself calm long enough for them to enjoy themselves, however I have to take a break afterward to get myself back in a peaceful state.

I have valid reasons for not liking to do these and I believe they are similar to Daniel’s reason.

Anything to do with cutting, coloring, painting, tearing, writing, stapling and many other things hurt my hands. I have always held my writing instruments the wrong way and I tend to hold them very tight, if I write a lot I get a callous on my ring finger. I already have a permanent one but it gets worse and hurts if I write too much or color. I do not like the feel of color crayons on paper, I have a personal hate of chalk because the thought of it hurts my body, scissors have always been awkward for me to hold and even now I have to use children scissors that are very loose so they flow easily.There are many other issues I could explain but I think you get the picture.

I know it is very important to help my children learn their motor skills and embrace different avenues of creativity.

Since I know how important it is I look for instruments that are made  specifically for Daniel’s needs and press through my own issues with the sounds, feels, smells etc.. Instead of forcing them to do something, like I was forced, if they show no interest in a craft we don’t do it. I take their cues, what interests them? Ariel loves to paint and color and I just let her do it, she makes pictures and draws stories all the time. Because of the freedom I give her she has taken up cutting out her pictures and taping them all around the house, all on her own. She creates things out of paper, different objects and she makes sculptures by tearing paper and glueing them. She does a lot more but I wanted to name a few.

Joshua is a builder.

He loves to stack and build things so I use his gift in the craft area, he also loves to eat so we make food creations and he really enjoys that. Daniel needs, and I am serious, needs to know how things work. If we explain to him how things work then he has interest, so when I explained how the scissors worked and what they do he finally picked them up at Christmas and said “I want to wrap presents”. He began to cut after almost two years of trying to get him to even pick them up. I ask him to draw me circles and once we do that for a while he is willing to try other shapes and sometimes he will do his name for me. He is really into music like me and we both are able to learn a song the first time we hear it and a lot of times we know the words before they sing them, so I am thinking of ways to have that help us with arts & crafts. Any ideas?

I have this feeling inside me that wants the kids to hurry up and get over this stage so they can do it all themselves but I don’t mean that and I know that I need to help them learn these skills. I am trying to have fun with it…trying.