This is my cutie-pie granddaughter, Alice, who is pretty darn good with a bow and arrow. She makes this skill look pretty easy. Her dad, Jacob, is very, VERY good with a bow and arrow. On this day he shot the bullseye on a small piece of paper on a tree a VERY long way away. It was quite impressive. We would never go hungry if Jacob were in our midst.
So, when it was my turn to try, I followed Alice's example, and I tried to do as I was told. Lift this, tuck that, pull that, straighten this out...ready? Pull back a little more...Go.
The arrow fell at my feet.
That's okay, I'm in the company of kind people, who didn't laugh. They lined me out again and I got off a few arrows that flew a respectable distance, for a newbie.
Well, I was at choir practice tonight, and figuratively, once again, the arrow fell at my feet.
We were introduced to an arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon/The First Noel that is very beautiful. I couldn't find what page we were on. We just jumped in, and our very talented pianist played the wonderful accompaniment, and an equally talented sister played the rest of the accompaniment on the organ. (What do you suppose it means when it takes two people to play the music?) I all I heard was a whole lot of notes that didn't seem to have one thing to do with the alto part. I'm not kidding, I didn't know what page to even look at. First or second ending? Huh? Contrapunel? Who? Go back to where? I just shut up and tried to make sense of any of it. At one point our dear director says, "I can't hear the altos." Really? Ya think?
Then someone said those words. Those dreaded, hated, banned-in-my-classroom words, "it's really not that hard." Whose twin is, "It's easy." Whose triplet is, "Alls ya gotta do is..." Sure, it's easy for those who have already mastered whatever it is! This was a wonderful reminder for me of how it feels to not know how. To be the one who doesn't get it when those around her seem to. To be the one who doesn't fit in. It's awful.
And I'm going to be a better teacher tomorrow.
