Kaleidoscope Shifting

I am typing this from a new computer.  The old computer suffered some kind of mental or medical crisis.  When I asked it to open my email, it did so, sort of.  The page was open, but it wouldn't let me read any of my emails.  The next day, I tried to help my son write a talk to give in church.  Halfway through the first sentence, the computer just gave up the ghost.

I tried to resuscitate it, to no avail.  Shock therapy just resulted in putting me into disbelief, or, well, shock.

I am glad to have a new computer, because I still have things to say.  And I've been thinking about how, not just in this instance, but, in many, we remake our lives all the time.

Remember the kaleidoscopes we played with as children?  The shapes and colors that were prominent in one view would thin out, slink back, as soon as we turned the dial.  A scene with big, bold, shapely blues could, with a tiny turn of the wrist, become a scene with long lines of gold.  It seems more and more possible to me all the time that, in five years' time, my life might not resemble my current life much at all, in some aspects.

Our neighborhood church had a talent show recently.  I was sort of one of the people in charge of it.  What I was mostly in charge of was calling a few people to find out what it was that they were going to do for the show--how much time they needed and how they wanted to be introduced.

One little girl was going to play an instrument she'd been taking lessons on.  Her one song soon turned into four songs.  I have known this little girl since she was too shy to even get on a stage in a group, just to sit there.  She did perform at the talent show, but called it quits after one song, which was perfectly adequate.  I was impressed with her growth.

I encouraged one of my own children to sing a song.  His pitch is great.  His imitation of accents, voices, and rhythms, right on.  He has some real talent.  Unfortunately, the front he usually displays hides those talents, like certain kaleidoscope pieces, behind behaviors that most people find objectionable.  I thought it would be good for him--and everyone else--to see a different side of him.  So, I more or less told him he would be displaying his singing and memorization talents, and he was fine with that.  He is also not at all shy.

I had him sing certain songs, picked the one he seemed best at, obtained the music so I could accompany him, and we practiced several times.  Then, I put him right up there on the stage for everyone to watch as the angry reds he usually displays on his kaleidoscope screen slid back behind some emerging soft and curly greens and lovely blues.  So to speak.  

Unbeknownst to me, another child had volunteered to play an instrument she has learned at school.  The night before the show, she came to me and asked me if it would be all right for her to leave some parts of the song out.  "What do you mean?" I asked her, and had her bring me the music.  The parts she wanted to cut turned out to be a measure here or there.  Measures that seemed too hard to play.  She also admitted that she had never yet played through the entire song, even once.  I smiled and suggested, only because she had less than 24 hours left, that she cut the piece short rather than just chop out certain measures.  We found a good stopping place, and I marked it.

Several children, as well as adults, put themselves on the line to perform the night of the show.  I was proud of every one of them.  I have begun to think that knowing you can do something hard just may be the most important thing a person can learn.  Ever.

Think about it.  There will always be challenges in life.  Several of them things that could not have been predicted.  We try to teach our children sports, reading, math, music, social graces--everything they may need in life.  But even we cannot predict everything.  When I was a child, needing computer skills was not even something being talked about in science fiction.  Yet, Kindergarten teachers are sending home computer homework these days. 

Try as we may, we cannot predict and teach every single skill our children will need in life. 

But, once a person knows that she or he can master something difficult, s/he can draw on that knowledge time and time again.  I did that, so maybe I can do this.

What could be more important to know?  What could be more precious and instructive, supportive and valuable, than self-efficacy?  That I can do it that determines, when it comes right down to it, whether or not you actually can do it.

Life changes, all the time.  Try keeping a particularly spectacular kaleidoscope picture in place while you hand it to someone else to see.  Invariably, it will shift in the transfer, and the person will shrug, unable to see what was so remarkable to you.  As life shifts things around, knowing that great scenes will come again, that we can weather challenges, can do hard things, is going to serve us better and in more ways than any one small, specific skill.

Persist.  Wait it out.  Big, chunky purples might fade away and be replaced by flowering pinks.  You never know.  Just stay and watch the show.