Knowing what my job is, helps. Knowing what it isn't helps too. Sometimes the people who make comments on Off the Left Eye think I am Curtis, the one in the videos, and assume I have any power to create content. Which I do not. I rest safely in my corner of responding to readers. It never occurs to me to tell him how to do his
job.
This summer there will be camps at the place I teach sewing. I will be on staff for those weeks focused on small projects like tote bags and stuffed camels. There are other dates in which girls will explore fashion design. That is not my bailiwick, having never drafted a woman's garment from scratch. Unless of course you count the dozens of little girls' dresses I made for my twins that varied in print, and color, and ruffles, but were mostly all a
combination of puffed sleeves and Peter Pan collars.
Then there is my job supporting marriages. John and I are willing and able to meet with a couple and chat about good ways to listen to one another. But letters like MFT are nowhere in my resume, and I am not interested in putting up a facade.
Even the forty years of motherhood had parameters. I made lunches, and ferried them to school. But I never set a splint, or coached their
soccer teams. When they learned French and Spanish I smiled and said "Yay!" in English.
It is clearer to me now than it was in my twenties that my part in becoming a kind person is also a joint operation. I can bite my tongue when a snarky response comes up for air, but the implantation of benevolence happens behind closed doors.
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalm
51