The Night I Made a Sad Volcano

I didn't tell anyone I was going. That's the part I keep coming back to.

It started because I walked past the studio on my way home from work last week, the one on the corner near the library, and there was a sign in the window that said 'Drop-In Wheel Night, Wednesdays, $12.' Twelve dollars. I had twelve dollars and no particular reason to go home. So I stood there for about thirty seconds doing the mental negotiation that shouldn't even be necessary for a thing that costs twelve dollars, and then I went in.

I had never touched a pottery wheel in my life. The instructor showed me the basic shape of what I was supposed to do, center the clay, open it, pull up the walls, and made it look like breathing. My first attempt collapsed. My second attempt also collapsed but in a more interesting direction. The third one stayed upright long enough that I'm calling it a bowl, even though it looks like it made a series of poor choices.

studying my disaster like it's fine art

The clay gets everywhere. It was in my hair by the end. I still found a little bit behind my ear this morning and I don't know how that's physically possible.

Here's the thing, though. For about forty minutes I was not thinking about the comment sitting in my drafts that I still haven't answered. I wasn't thinking about the running I keep meaning to restart. I was just thinking about the clay, and whether the walls were going to hold, and whether the bowl was going to be a bowl. It's the most present I've felt in weeks. I walked home with clay under my fingernails and twelve dollars less in my wallet and I felt like I'd gotten away with something. I'm going back next Wednesday.