Beading! :oO !! in A New Beginning

I am not the most physically coordinated person in the world, ok? I do alright at “big” movements, but, like, manual dexterity is really not my forte. Specifically, I don’t have a lot of hand/eye coordination, so there are some things....craftsy type things for example....that do not “call to me.” Or if they do call to me, it’s something like “WE ARE NOT FOR YOU.”

So it was to my great dismay that I learned, once I got to the coven meeting yesterday, that instead of teaching us about Cronehood and Sagehood like our schedules said, HPS Darleen was going to teach us how to make prayer beads. I immediately rolled my eyes (inwardly, or at least I meant to) and thought, “Well dammit! I wouldn’t have even come if I’d known they were going to do CRAFTS!!”

That might’ve sounded a bit snobbish, but rest assured, I am not snobbish about crafts at all! I LOVE looking at crafted things, and I admire the skill and time that goes into making them, and I think that handcrafted items make wonderful gifts!!!!! And some crafts, I would like to do, but I’ve had a few women valiantly try to teach me to knit or crochet, and I just cannot get the hang of it at all! My fingers do not work that way! I cannot watch what another person’s fingers do, and then replicate that movement. I don’t know if there’s a name for that or not, but I think “manual dyslexia” would fit.

Anyhow, I hadn’t been forewarned, so there I was, looking quite aghast. Dar told us that before we began making our prayer beads, we were to think about HOW we would like to use them in our personal practice, and then design our beads. “This will be the hardest part,” she told us. But I knew it wouldn’t be the hardest part for me!! I’m great at ideas and great with designs!! What I figured I probably wasn’t going to be great at was putting wee little beads on a tiny thin wire! And I know myself very well. I WASN’T good at it! Heck, how can be good at it if you can’t even SEE the teeny tiny holes in the teeny tiny beads?? I just had to hold each teeny tiny bead between my fingers and turn it and turn it, repeatedly stabbing at it with the tiny thin wire until it just happened to miraculously go through the bead!! How long do you suppose THIS took??

And everyone else is just happily beading away, sing-songing like a flock of robins about how much fun they thought this was. I was not having fun, but since I DO have a sense of humor that is able to cover pretty much everything, I was snickering and giggling about my situation in the midst of fussing about it, making remarks that had my covenmates chuckling too. “Oh Nicky, how I’ve missed you!” a couple of them said. Well yea, I should hope so! But did they have to welcome me back by making me string beads??

And the irony of it was, I actually DID want to make the prayer beads, because I thought it was a great idea and I had had no trouble at all, thinking of ways I would use them. So instead of just saying fuck it and something lame like, “I will take this stuff home and do it later,” I stuck with it bead by painstaking bead. Because I DO know myself, and I knew damn well that if I took the stuff home, I would never, EVER do them.

I did, finally, get mine done. After everyone was long since finished, and eating the brunch sausage-and-egg casserole Cheryl had brought! Oh, I was so hungry; I sure hoped there would be some of it left by the time I got a chance to have some, if I ever did!!!! What a frickin’ struggle I was having. And seriously, I gotta tell you, it might have been a BIT easier if I had had adequate lighting! But we were in Annie’s living room, and it is not a very bright room; she doesn’t even have a ceiling light and her lamps are dim. I probably could really have done it more easily at home....but I knew that I simply wouldn’t ever DO it at home, SO.

I’m happy to tell you, I finally did get to eat some of that casserole, and it was scrumptious, too. :o)

I haven’t used the prayer beads yet, but tonight I’m going to. Yesterday, by the time I got home, I had to spend the rest of the deal recovering from the experience of making them! :o)