One Box at a Time

I started this in graduate school. I was such an awful grad student--namely the fact that I didn't have enough self confidence to say anything in class discussions. I would sit there thinking of what I would like to say but would only dumbly nod and smile. I would follow a couple of my professors out of the room telling them what I would have said had someone not jumped in right before I was planning on FINALLY saying something or maybe I would email my comments to the teacher even later. I am such a dork.

Looking back, class meetings should have been pleasant, but for me, they were always a difficult three hours. In the beginning of each class I would draw three blocks. After the first hour I could color in the first block. The second block I would split in half and allow myself the pleasure of coloring in two blocks--one every half hour. I would split the last block into twelve even sections. Every five minutes = another tiny, tiny square to pattern in--I brought no box of Crayolas.

So, since then I see unpleasant times as merely blocks to pattern. The time goes by faster, rhythmically, and the memory of it is a little more elegant, orderly and artistic. Like a fixator on Ingrid's leg--