What the Clay Kept

The last Wednesday was three weeks ago now. I keep meaning to write about it and then not writing about it, which is probably its own kind of answer.

Here is what I made in six sessions: one thing. One collapsed, gray-white, decidedly-not-a-bowl thing that I wrapped in a plastic bag and brought home because the instructor said I could and I couldn't explain why I wanted to. It's on the kitchen windowsill now, between Gerald and the window, and I look at it every morning when I'm making coffee. It has a rim on one side and almost no rim on the other. The bottom is thicker than any functional bowl bottom needs to be. If you put soup in it the soup would immediately leave.

the collapsed bowl and Gerald. a complete sentence.

I registered for that class because I noticed, in a way that felt mildly embarrassing to notice, that I hadn't done anything with my hands in months. Not made anything, not built anything, just typed and read and ran and typed some more. Six Wednesday evenings was supposed to fix that. I was going to learn a thing. What I actually learned is that clay is heavier than it looks and centering it on the wheel requires a specific kind of patient pressure that I do not naturally possess. I lost my center at least four times a session. One night I just watched it go lopsided and felt something that wasn't quite frustration, more like recognition.

I don't know what to call what I got out of it. Not a skill. Definitely not a bowl. Something more like, I was somewhere for six weeks where I couldn't check my phone because my hands were covered in slip, and that was the thing. The involuntary stopping. I sat across a wheel from myself for an hour at a time with nowhere to put all the noise, and the clay just kept collapsing, and I kept trying again, and at some point that started to feel like enough. Gerald's been alive on that windowsill for months without doing anything dramatic. Maybe the bowl belongs next to him.

wednesday mornings without anywhere to be.