I thought about how there must be a better way to do this, how inept my hands were, how tired my arms were...

How do my students feel, when they try to write a sentence and have trouble spelling a word, forming a letter...how long can they pay attention when the task is entirely new and they don't even know what the end result should be...how frustrated or angry do they become? How do they learn to stick to it?

Goodness, is this how my students feel after their first lesson with me?

I had to talk to myself—gently—when I realized that my frustration was totally out of proportion to the task at hand.

"Fay (said I), it's o.k. It's only a strip of cloth. It's smaller than you. It's not worth this anger. In fact—why are you angry? Is it because you expect your hands and eyes to be coordinated—immediately—on a new task? Is it because you've got all these strips of cloth lying on the floor in a heap and you just realized they're tangled and will have to be untangled? Is it because some of them are only four feet long so will require more joins than if you'd ripped the sheet lengthwise instead of crosswise— again? So, Fay, calm down. See the funny side. It's an old sheet, for goodness sake."

So this morning, tried again. Did the first couple of rows—and discovered old sheets torn in strips are much less forgiving than yarn. Threads come off the sides and tangle in the hook. And I lost count—yeeks, you have to keep counting? How can I listen to the radio and count at the same time? And of course, I can't. A couple of rows into the oval, found I had 20 stitches on one side of the original chain, and fourteen on the other.

Not good. It's curling up sort of strangely.

Rip the whole thing apart, because my error seems to be in the second row. Dang. Uh-oh. The fabric strip keeps winding up as the crochet pulls apart. Now I have to untwist it. O.K. I can do that. I'm being more patient here. Sure I am. But I'm listening to the radio so have something for my brain to do besides complain.

Dang! I've un-twisted all that fabric, and as I go to re-wind it on the ball it twists again! Cheeeeeeeeeee!