Here to Learn!

I took a letterpress class this weekend! Remember, back in the day, when I'd just gotten my own letterpress? Thanks to the Center for the Book, I am finally learning how to use it! I had a great time in Letterpress I on Saturday, made some super-cool cards, and came home tired and with paint on my hands. Most awesomely, the prof made sure that we learned how to clean up afterward! This wasn't a Color Me Mine class where we made some sweet art and walked away from our messes, this was the whole nine yards: we made our sweet art, then we put on some gloves and went to work with solvent and rags! I want letterpress to become a part of who I am, so I appreciated this. I need to care for Coppie/Printie (my machine needs a name! see my P.S.!) and I'm glad to earn my chops!

As I near a certain age (cough, sputter), I'm realizing that, even with my supreme optimism about the endless potential of a striving human, there's a limit to the skills we can master in a lifetime. With this in mind, I've started taking classes whenever I can, to at least get a taste of the many wonderful possibilities out there. I know I won't be devoting my life to most of them (and the many pet bowls I made in a pottery class attest to this), but I'm having a good time and finding those activities that I do want to be central to my life.

This year I've taken two dance classes, West Coast Swing and Bellydance, and proven what I'd already suspected: I have two left feet (and two left bellies). Once I got over my embarrassment—which renewed itself for every class, fresh and frustrating (and I'm a blusher!)—I had a great time, or at least most of me did. My brain was screaming: No! Let's go home and do stuff we're good at! Like TV! We excel at TV! But my body was ready to dance, literally, like a fool. Apparently my brain is old and rigid and terrifically afraid of mistakes while the rest of me still feels like a kid and doesn't really care about getting things exactly right. If my brain is my inner editor, the rest of me must be the writer. Learning new things keeps the playing field even for when I sit down in my writing cubby to do my real work.

At first it seemed silly to spend money on these "amenities" (my brain had a lot to say about that—-oh man, does my inner editor like to do math—I have a regular chartered accountant up there), but I haven't regretted a cent! I'm signing up for more classes right now. Some I know won't be a part of my life once the class is over, but are part of the buffet I'm sampling while life allows—specifically, another dance class: Highland Swing! (My brain is already on page 7 of a bulleted and footnoted list about why this is The Worst Idea in the Recorded History of Time, a Waste of Time, and Other Phrases Focused on Time.) And two others that I hope to stick with and become a life-long student of: Tai Chi and Letterpress II, here I come!

How about you? Are you learning anything new? Are there dances, instruments, machines, knitting patterns, you hope to master? I've got my eye on the accordion, even though I don't like prison very much and many bumper stickers have alerted me to the fact that playing one comes with such a sentence. Do you play anything? How did you earn your chops? Do you have fun with your mistakes? Are you a blusher, like me? (How do you overcome that? I mean, seriously, I could have written an entire blog about blushing.) What have you picked up and found, to your surprise, you had a knack for? How does any of this affect your writing? Are there POVss or tenses that allude you? Ones that you've finally got secure in your toolbox? We're here to learn, I say! What have you learned? What awaits you?

– Tupelo

P.S. Name my letterpress! It deserves a christening. For some background, it is a Kelsey and just as beautiful as it looks in this picture! Suggest some names in the comments and if my panel of highly biased experts chooses yours, I'll send you a sample of my newbie letterpress work!