Weekend-engagement topics: week 208

Greetings from Caracas, friends. How are you having this weekend? I'm having a quiet weekend, at La Poeteca, a place where I usually come to read and write. Today I am the only visitor. It's a good place to write the post for Weekend-Engagement. As usual @galenkp has given us several interesting topics to write about. I chose to comment with you on the one below:

Writing about the things you do well can seem a bit prideful. I'm not one of those people who like to flaunt their good qualities and brag about them in front of others. But at my age, I've just turned 58, I'm clear about what I'm good at and what I'm not. I can write for the friends of Weekend Experiences about that, because I will also talk about the things I am not good at.

I like order. It helps my days flow without a lot of stress. I have a place for my keys; books in order in my library, according to literary genre or subject, non-literary ones; clothes in the closet organized, flannels together, coats together, pants together, etc. When I get messy I start to get nervous, I start to lose things, my keys, my glasses, my purse, just when I am about to go out. When I worked in offices it was the same, where there was mess I organized it.

Another thing I'm good at is writing. It has been my vocation for many years and I think I have learned something about it. Like most writers, first came the love for books, for reading, and in my teens I started writing. I was better at writing than I was at talking to other people. Eventually I gained some confidence and learned to converse a little bit as well.

Now I will tell you about those things for which I have no skill. Definitely mathematics. Ever since I was a little girl I have not been good at doing math, doing equations. That world for me was a suffering when I was studying. That's why I went for a humanistic career, letters, literature. Most of us poets are not good at mathematics. Although there are exceptions, I have a poet friend, Luis Gerardo Mármol, who studied mathematics. My father, on the other hand, worked in a bank all his life, doing accounts.

Another thing I'm not good at, that I'm not good at: manual tasks. Those skills that were typically feminine for centuries like sewing, embroidering, crafting, making ornaments. None at all, honey. When I was a child the teachers had to accommodate as best they could the disastrous crafts I made. I'm not good at it. I am an intellectual, I like to read, interpret, write, but do things with my hands. No, I'm not good at it. And you, what are you good for? I hope you enjoyed my article this weekend.