Poor Bob

No, this is not the Bob I wrote about Monday, although if anyone deserves our compassion it would be that Bob.

The Bob I'm talking about today is a man who is attempting the seemingly impossible and doing it with seemingly endless patience.

He's my pottery instructor.

For three weeks Bob has spent his Tuesday evenings dealing with a full grown child who can't remember a thing he taught her last week, let alone 5 minutes ago. He deserves something. A medal? An award? It's a good thing this class is only 6 weeks long-otherwise poor Bob would end up with a vacation in a Swiss sanitarium. (Oh, but hey! That might not be a bad thing....Switzerland. I've always wanted to see Switzerland. The fantastic mountains, the world famous cows, their reliable watches. A pocket watch would be a really fun souvenir for Bob to bring back with him, provided they could restore his mental health after what I've put him through. Put him through....put him through...Oh yeah. I was talking about pottery.)

Moving along. Have you ever wanted to do something so badly you could taste it, but you just can't get it? That's how this pottery class is going. I love, love, love it, but it is really stretching me. I'm having to learn how to focus and put all of my attention into detail, and I am not a detail person.

When I was young my mom attempted to teach me things too. She could cook like Rachael Ray,

clean like a Merry Maid and get this: she invented a way to crochet a blanket, making it double thick as she went along. Every time she tried to teach me that pattern, or how to clean something, or cook Sunday dinner, we'd fight. I couldn't get it and I always blamed her. She's not patient. She just doesn't know how to teach. I honestly never thought it was me and now that crochet pattern is gone, lost forever. (I have figured out how to cook and clean, much to my family's relief.)

The problem is, I'm random. A big picture person. A very. big. picture. person. A person who sees a great movie and gets so caught up in the feelings the movie evoked that she can't remember the plot, who the protagonist was, or how it ended. But boy howdy, it was a great movie!

My pottery class is progressing along the same lines. There's poor Bob, patiently trying for the umpteenth time to show me how to cone the clay. I stand there, watching him, my ears listening, trying to absorb his words. My brain, however, is another story. It sits between my ears going wow, Bob has such big hands. I love how he can get the clay to do whatever he wants. It would be so fun to have a pottery wheel at home so I could do this whenever the mood strikes. I wonder how much a pottery wheel costs? And a kiln. I'll need a kiln...would the electric bill kill us? What color glaze should I use on this bowl I'm, no, bob is making. Bob is making. Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be listening to Bob....

I used to be able to laugh at myself for being this way. I didn't mind being a floaty-in-the-head kind of person. But lately? Not so much. I'm getting extremely frustrated with myself. It's impossible for me to study the bible and figure things out with this kind of brain. It's impossible for me to learn how to make a simple pot out of clay with this kind of brain. And don't get me started on cell phones. I can't even figure out how to turn one on. Every single time someone attempts to teach me how to use one it's pottery class all over again. Wow. This tiny black box is sending signals through space. It can connect me to someone in Switzerland if I knew anyone there to talk to. That's incredible. I wonder how they figured these things out?....

Lately I've been feeling "just a tish" insecure about myself. It's an embarrassing way to be. However, I need to remind me that God made me this way. On purpose. (see my post from here.) I'm not here for comic relief and there's nothing "wrong" with me. However, I'm also thinking it's not a bad thing to be stretched...to learn how to focus and put at least some of my attention into detail. It's exhausting, but if nothing else I need to do it for poor Bob.