The Laundry Was Right There

March twentieth. The plan was straightforward: end of the Wednesday yoga class, walk to the bus, go home, do the laundry that had been sitting in the hamper since Sunday. Simone and I came out of the changing room at the same time and she said the pottery open studio was on tonight, she'd seen it on the board by the entrance, and before I had finished the thought I heard myself say yes.

I should be clear: I have been to open studio before. I know how it works. I know that the clay is cold and the wheel is harder without the class structure and that you will almost certainly produce nothing that resembles what you intended. None of that stopped me. Simone had her apron on before I had finished rolling up my sleeves, which tells you something about relative preparation levels. My first attempt at centering collapsed almost immediately and she did not say anything but the look she gave it said everything necessary.

She was already thinking about the next time.

We stayed two hours. The laundry is still in the hamper. There is clay in one of my fingernails that did not come out in the sink. At one point, near the end, I looked over at Simone and she had this expression, not the usual skeptical-until-smiling one, more like she was genuinely considering whether there was a version of the evening where she had just kept walking to the bus instead, and what that version would have cost her. I didn't say anything. We walked out to the stop together and she said 'same time next month?' and I said yes before the question had fully landed.

There is a line I keep thinking about from one of the lag posts, something about how the body knew before the mind did. That was about rock climbing, but it applies here too. I had already said yes before I had decided to. The hamper is a problem for tomorrow-Elena. Tonight-Elena made the right call.