The Benefits of Feeling Dumb

About a year ago, I found a sewing machine for thirty dollars at an estate sale. It sat in my garage for months. A friend asked to borrow it around January, and it sat on her mudroom shelf until today when I picked it up. The last time I sewed I was about twelve. Even then I had a hard time threading the needle and bobbin. I would get my home ec teacher to do it (as I recall, the machines were threaded before we came to class) or my grandmother, if she was showing how to make something. After forty years, I didn't expect to remember much. My expectations were right on target.

My sewing class started tonight. I lugged my machine through the parking lot and then the building, along with my super-cute sewing box I got at JoAnn's today. It occurred to me when we started class that I'd never even checked to make sure the machine worked. It did, but I couldn't figure out how to do anything. The teacher spent more time helping me than helping anyone else in the class (or maybe it just felt like that). I was so frustrated! I didn't know what the knobs were for, I didn't understand the fold we did for seams, and I had misunderstood the materials list so I was missing some contrasting fabric we needed for tonight's class project. I was feeling like an idiot, so much so that at one point I swore I would never come back after tonight.

I've taken a lot of classes over the years, but nearly all of them were academic classes, and I may not have been the smartest person in the class but I surely wasn't the dumbest. So I never minded classes. In fact, I kind of liked them. But as far as I can remember, at least since my undergrad days, I haven't taken a class in which I knew nothing (or didn't pick it up fast). I wouldn't say I especially liked feeling like an ignoramous in my sewing class, but I will say that it stretched my boundaries and eventually I started picking it up. Comfort zones aren't necessarily comfortable, only familiar, and I'm trying really hard to break out of mine. I suppose there will be some frustration as I try new things. Oh, and by the end of tonight's two-hour class, where I started off knowing nothing, I had made a pillowcase, all by myself. That made me feel a little smarter.