Doing Things Differently

The ordinary but orderly way to eat hay

John always likes to say, "it's the full moon" which could be true today, because yesterday was indeed a full moon. I sometimes wish it were just the moon and then I would just have to deal with a day or two a month.

Today, I had my after school knitting class; 6 middle schoolers. I think it was our 6th time together (though some have missed a time or two or three) and they pretty much have the knit stitch down, so I felt it was time to move on to the purl stitch. I took some great colorful small balls of yarn my friend Kathleen sent, and knit a base for each student to work from. I cast on 18 stitches on each so they could later become these great little hand puppets for refuge children (pattern also from Kathleen). Thank you Kathleen.

I got to school and found we were going to have to use a different room because of a pep club thing so right off the bat something was different. I carefully explained what we were going to do but immediately things went a rye . The first student told me she forgot how to knit and I said O.K., but then she told me she was left handed and couldn't knit right handed. We had the talk about left handed people learning to knit right handed so they could read patterns later, the first day. I asked her how she was doing the past couple of weeks and she said she had only been casting on.

She decided she wanted to learn how to knit left handed regardless of the future difficulties. So I honored her decision and told her I would brush up on my left handed knitting. Then there were the two students that wanted to sit on the table and knit. Next, was the student that only wanted to purl one row and that was it for knitting for her today. Another student only wanted to knit; no purling. She is a good knitter but she doesn't want to have anything to do with purling and I just don't get it. I sure hope Thursday goes a little better.

Later, back at the barnyard, I had animals that wanted to do things differently. They like to eat out of the wheelbarrow before I get the hay in the hay bin. Also, they wanted to eat on the back side of the hay bin which meant I had to go back later to close the red gate.

So shall I just be glad there is only one full moon a month and hope that that is what "different" is about or shall I consider that they are all giving me the opportunity to see things differently, honor differences, and see what I can learn from it all.