Learning

I dreamed last night I was back in school somehow, some way. I don’t know if it was in high school or college, and I don’t know where it was. There were kids from my hometown there (stupid facebook dredging up memories), but I hadn’t forgotten my locker combination, or left my class schedule at home, or ended up in homeroom half-naked (those are nightmares, not dreams).

But my point (and I do have one) is that I was back in school….and I was learning.

I don’t always remember my dreams right when I wake up. And I didn’t this morning. It came back to me as I rode to work (230 miles so far, thank you very much), through the puddles from last nights storms (more hail!). And there it was. An opportunity to reflect…and to avoid the back splash of puddle water…

I love learning, which may be the cause of taking on so many crafts, and within those crafts, so many projects. For me, I (typically) will progress through my projects, refining what I know already, but learning new techniques as well. Sometimes those new techniques really click. And I am grateful I have learned I can put aside those things that don’t.

And also the buying of books. Yes. Definitely the buying of books. Books offer a lot of learning. Which one gains through the reading of said books.

I learn everyday at work. I am fortunate to work with those who mentor very well. Or perhaps I just learn easily. Or both.

I subscribe to the on-line word-for-the-day. Because. It is learning! A word a day! I love Antiques Roadshow, and the real (not reality) programming that teaches, whether on PBS, Discovery, National Geo, History, or whatever. (Trust me, that is not all I watch...)

I am a student of life, listening to those at my meeting, hearing their stories, their experience, strength, and hope, and seeing what I can learn.

Poor Wonderful Guy is drug all over history museums and ranger-led hikes and national monuments…always listening…always reading…

I am the penultimate student, and in my mind, still in a turtle neck, bell-bottoms, and with long blonde hair…back in college, in other words…young-ish…(even though back then I might have really believed you couldn’t have told me anything).

And I am so grateful to those who have taken the time to teach me, from my mother, who taught me to cook (the basics), sew (serious basic skills), and knit (when I was young enough, so it became like riding a bike), the gifted teachers I had from grade school through college, my supervisors who were mentors, the list goes on.

But I am not sure I have anything to offer back. What can I teach anyone? I don’t think that much. A lot of what I have learned I have picked up, gleaned, and modified. It might not be ‘right’. It might just ‘work’ for me.

Like how I cast on when knitting. I have never seen anyone else do it the way I do it.

Like how my tomatoes and roses grow so well. Don’t ask me how. I just lucked out where I planted them. Maybe it was intuition…

There is a part of me that feels it is an injustice if I am not giving back some of what I receive. For a free thinking, old hippie-type liberal democrat, there is some serious guilt in the above thinking.

And that’s what I am reflecting on today.