Too many emails. Too many problems. Too many voices with too many demands and conflict. What do you do? Run? Eat chocolate? Drink a bottle of Chardonnay?
I throw.
I know it doesn't sound like throwing a five pound ball of clay on a wheel and wrestling it into a bowl would be the thing to do under difficult circumstances, but it is. I've thrown mad and sad and tired. And every time, even with every feeling, I come away calmer, happier and refreshed. Now that doesn't mean it's all rainbows and unicorns, either. Believe me, when I'm in a difficult state, the clay knows it. I slam it down. I push it around and, even, wrestle it into submission.
But somewhere between the throwing and the shaping, I shape up.
I don't see it in the moment. There is just a lump of clay spinning on the wheel. All I feel is the bumps and lumps that need to be smoothed, the wobbles that need to be held and centered and sides that need to be pulled up evenly. I stop watching the wheel go round and round and close my eyes or focus on the spots on the floor of my garage. And somewhere, somehow during this process, I look down and there's a vase or a bowl on my wheel.
It's a mystery. Just like my favorite quote from the movie, 'Shakespeare in Love', "It all turns out well in the end. How? I don't know, it's a mystery."
When the world get crazy, I throw.
You can call me crazy. It's ok. I can take it. Just don't take away my wheel.
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