What You Cannot See, You Can Feel

I've been knitting for more than 30 years now. While working on projects I noted that the yarn I used had a unique texture depending on what color it was. Pink yarn, for example, feels sticky to me, while red yarn feels rough and sandy. I asked my mother and my sisters if they noticed the same thing, but they said that they did not, or that they did not bother to, and so I kept quiet about it for some time.

In 2013, while I was teaching creative writing in my "Writing from The Heart" workshop at the Philippine National School for the Blind, I remembered my knitting and introduced a new exercise. I asked the participants to peel the paper covers off every crayon in their boxed sets. I then placed one crayon of the same color in their hands, a color at a time, and asked them to feel it while thinking of specific associations. I even allowed them to smell and lick each crayon.

At the end of the exercise I asked the class to raise the crayons that corresponded to my words--Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, and so on. NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of the participants successfully completed the exercise. The teacher-monitor who was observing the workshop was shocked speechless.

Try this exercise with crayons and with yarn. It heightens your powers of observation.