I am really bad with my hands, very clumsy and not an ounce of talent to do anything with them. My handwriting is also pretty bad. I have nothing but the utmost respect for people who can work with their hands - people who paint, sculpt, play instruments with their hands and much more. While I knew that I did not possess an iota of talent in those fields, that has not stopped me from trying to make something I could be proud of if not create a masterpiece. To that end I have tried innumerable things meeting with miserable failures. But that did not deter me from trying from time to time.
I tried to take up knitting and made a pretty good looking baby blanket for my daughter, but soon realized in the midst of making a sweater for my husband, that I was not made for it. The joy of making something with my hands was soon overtaken by a feeling of boredom in repeating the same thing over and over again. Not to mention keeping track of the pattern, counting the number of knits etc. My husband's sweater never went beyond a patch about 2 inches long - a matter which to this day makes my husband's natural pout even more pronounced. My daughter discovered the remnants of the yarn and the patterns and the needles during a clean up job last month and made me promise that I'd teach her knitting. Well, promises are meant to be broken, aren't they?
Well anyways, coming back to my original topic of how bad I am with my hands. Another thing which fascinates me is pottery. I remember watching Doordarshan wherein they would once in a very long time, take a break from making us watch the cows and the fields and would actually shed light on professions other than farming. I would watch transfixed as the potters wheel turned round and round and the clay would soon morph into a work of art. I would love the way the hands would shape the finished product - a slight touch here, a gentle pull here, a small push here making a world of difference to how the pot would look in the end. I tried many a time to take some pottery classes, but somehow never panned out. I did buy a kids pottery wheel last year and enthusiastically tried to make it work, to no avail. My poor husband got us two large packets of clay which we tried very unsuccessfully to turn into something that would bear a resemblance to anything from a pot to a mug to finally a plain saucer. All we could achieve was a small structure that we claimed to be a cup, but no one was ready to believe in our make believe. Alas! with that lack of encouragement, we decided to stop all our efforts in making the next masterpiece. Needless to say, my husband still pouts whenever the offending clay comes into picture. My advise to him, should've gotten one packet yaar!
Over the years, time and again I have tried to make something with my hands that I could be proud of. When I was a kid, I had tried to embroider - while the finished product was not a complete disaster, I must've gotten the threads all messed up at least a couple of hundred times. I knew at the end of it that I would never embroider again. Even when I try to sew to fix a tear sometimes, my husband noticing my clumsiness and basic untidiness in sewing cannot stop himself from offering his services. Well I gotta hand it to him, he does a better job than I do.
A brilliant idea stuck me a few years ago after we moved into our new house. Why not try my hand at gardening? Our house had a huge basement that I used to start a small nursery. Was extremely happy when the seeds sprouted and the saplings raised their tiny leaves. I looked after them religiously, watering them, making sure they had enough light etc etc. Finally it was time to plant them outside, which I did with quite a bit of enthusiasm when I thought that Spring had finally landed in Chicagoland. Boy, was I naive then. I should've realized that Spring in Chicago might officially start in March, but snow and frost never leaves till the end of April and sometimes well into May. Needless to say, all my poor saplings died one night when the temperatures fell below freezing point. From the next year, I started to get my plants from a nursery near my work. I can still hear my husband saying - "No nursery this year?", more with relief than anything else!
Another thing that never fails to amaze me is the art of origami. I can never cease watching with wonder while a plain piece of paper transforms into something so striking. As for me and origami, well when we were young kids, my brothers would make these paper rockets that would whoosh into the space and land with aplomb. No matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to make anything that would first look like it was rocket and even if there was a slight resemblance, could stay in the air for more than a milli second before crashing into an unsightly heap. So when I found a book on making paper airplanes, I wasn't so sure it could be of any use to me. But my kids wanted me to take it, so I bought it. On the weekend we started making models from the designs and instructions in the book. Quite confusing I must add with Mountain folds, Airplane folds, Valley folds, Rabbit ear folds and what not. I gave up in a few minutes and implored my husband to make one. He did make the basic one, but I turned up my nose at him, saying I would make a better one. He just laughed, don't know why!I would show him!
Well anyways, this weekend after my son shed a few tears asking me to make something out of the book, I started out from the first page and make a pretty decent basic one. "This is too simple" I heard my son say. It was back to the book again. I decided I was going to try all the models. Well all I can say about my efforts has already been written. Basically, I sucked pretty bad at it. Also my son is not at the age where I can bluff my way out. He is able to make such comments as - This doesn't look like the one in the book - This doesn't fly at all - Seriously, Mom? blah blah. Then voila on page 32 were instructions for making the 'Greatest YZ'(whatever that means) model paper plane. I folded and read, read and folded, prayed a little bit, scratched my head a bit more, looked to see if my son had lost interest and at the end of it all, finally made something that resembled the model shown. My son was not very impressed -let's see if it works - he said with sarcasm dripping and gave it a twirl. It flew majestically up before landing even more majestically. He let a whoop of delight. I was still in shock. He picked it up again and it made a sharp turn before landing. He got even more excited. Me? I was on Cloud 9. I showed my husband my creation when he came home. He had to reluctantly agree that it was good. AlI I could say to him was - "Can you make anything close to that...can you..can you?" I showed him, didn't I?
