You Just Never Really Know.

One day, you dream of doing or making or being or creating or loving but you don’t see any way that it might work out. You don’t have the skills or the place or the equipment or the time or the opportunity. 

All you have is a dream that’s like steam on a mirror. You can see a vague form. You have a sense of presence and possibility that feels warm and inviting. But you can’t reach out and grab it. Not yet.  

Waiting is not fun. 

Patience is not my strong suit. I get so frustrated when I’m waiting for anything, anywhere, anytime. And yet, I know I can’t push time forward or backward because I am just one element, one blink of the immensity of time. Time is not mine. 

But when I see the future of an idea or a creation, I want to do it and see it now. And yet, at the same time, I know creation is not about the destination, the end point, the result. It’s about the journey. And the journey can take some crazy curves. 

Clay, my teacher. 

I love clay. It’s soft and cool and so wonderfully squishy. You can throw it and mold it and roll it. I can make it into cups, bowls, vases as well as masks, figures, flowers and faces. I can paint it and carve it and enjoy it’s pure, essential color. 

But it will not be rushed or pushed. It will only become in its own time. 

And I have learned to honor that even as I chomp at the bit of time. It’s a life long lesson in patience that is taking me a lifetime to learn. 

And that’s ok. I like all the life in and around me and I hope I get to keep living it for a long time. But since my sweet Jilly died suddenly in March, I’ve been shocked into the reality that time can stop suddenly for anyone at anytime. That fear has been chasing me lately, making me run faster and hurry. Yet at the same time, I’ve found myself holding my breath. 

But without breath, there is no life. 

And so clay, once again teaches me slowly to be here, in each roll, slab, turn of the wheel to be in each minute, each day, in each breath. That what I dreamed but never thought I could do, I can. What I thought would never happen, does. And an opportunity I’d given up on, comes to me. 

Breathe. Because you just never know. 

And that’s a good thing.