January 13

A craft lets you begin badly. The first bowls come out lopsided, the first seams split, and no one holds it against you. You practise on material that can bear the mistake.

For kindness, patience or fairness there is no such material. All the practice happens on a person. The clumsy comfort, the apology spoken too late, the well-meant help that treated the other person like a child: these were not trial pieces. Someone was on the receiving end.

Then there is a second oddity. In a craft, skill shows in something becoming easier. With being good, you are less sure of that. If consideration now comes to you without effort, that may be practice. But it may also mean that you only notice the occasions for which you already have an answer ready.

Perhaps that is why this art stays peculiarly unfinished. The people you learned on let a good deal pass, often without saying so. If you are more patient today than you used to be, their patience is in it too.