Pending the Kiln

June fourth. The instructor said we'd know in about two weeks. That's the window, two weeks from the last class, give or take, depending on the firing schedule. My bowl is in there somewhere, wrapped in whatever intention a lopsided beginner project gets to carry, and I have no way to speed that along.

I stood at the windowsill this morning longer than I needed to. The collapsed bowl from January 2011 is still there, it's always there now, it's been there so long it stopped being a thing I look at and became just part of the light, and there's a space in the arrangement that I didn't notice before this spring. Not a gap, exactly. More like a kind of readiness. The sill isn't waiting. I'm the one who's waiting.

the windowsill waiting for one more thing

Simone's bowl collapsed for the third time two weeks ago. She photographed it before the instructor swept the clay back into reclaim, and I've been thinking about that photograph ever since, what it means to document the thing before it disappears, whether that counts as keeping it. I don't know. Mine held. Imperfect, slightly off-center, but structurally intact when I lifted it from the wheel, which felt, at the time, disproportionately significant.

reconsidering the arrangement from further back

Two more weeks. I'm not thinking about where it will go if it comes back. That's a decision I'll make when there's something to decide about.