The Candle Knew What It Was

October twentieth. The community center runs one-off workshops in the fall, I saw the flyer taped to the board by the yoga studio door, half-covered by a notice about parking, and I mentioned it to Simone at the end of Tuesday's session mostly as a thing to say. By the end of the week we were registered.

The workshop was two hours on a Saturday morning. There was a woman running it who had clearly done this a thousand times and had the specific patience of someone who has watched a lot of wax go wrong. We got our jars, our wicks, our metal pitchers of melted beeswax. The room smelled the way you want a room to smell in October. I was genuinely paying attention. I measured the temperature. I poured slowly. I did everything they said.

Simone's candle cooled into something that looked like it had been purchased. Smooth surface, wick upright, everything level. She set it down and looked at it with quiet satisfaction and then looked at mine and said nothing, which was somehow more precise than any comment could have been. Mine had a sunken middle and a wick listing at an angle I can only describe as opinionated. The instructor tilted her head and said sometimes that happens on the first try. I appreciated the sometimes.

The candle had opinions.

We put them next to each other on the table at the end to see. The comparison was immediate and irrefutable. I took mine home anyway and it's sitting on the kitchen table right now giving off a smell I actually like and a silhouette that is entirely its own. I've been thinking about how often I show up to something new expecting to be competent at it immediately, and how the things that stay are usually the ones that humbled me first. The collapsed bowl is still on the shelf above the stove. The candle seems to understand.

Side by side for comparison. The jury needed no deliberation.