Hope

Hope is a funny thing. It's rope that burns your hand and also holds you, keeps you from falling.

Clay!!

There is a lot of stress in my life these days. Work, family, car almost getting towed because I forgot to move it on the day they were painting stripes on the street, you know, the usual. There was a time when my guitar was my journal and my therapist at once, I'd sing everything I felt. That doesn't seem to be happening for me now. 

But you know what is happening for me now? Clay! It had been about 8 years since I had touched clay, but I found out about Ruby's Clay Studio in San Francisco and started going to their drop in hours. Just to remember how to work the clay, I made a couple of dinosaurkangarooalligator creatures.  They are sitting on my dresser top now. 

Different people see them as different things, and I'm fine with that. I see them as full and happy of whatever I want to fill them with. Especially the fatso one with her arms around her belly. She's so full! Uhhhhh!

Now that they are done, the obvious next move is big slugs. 

There's something about moving clay around with my hands, all the mooshing, smoothing, cutting, forming, that is so good for getting my mind off what worries me. I don't think about whether the group in the field has enough water carrying capacity for their dry camp tonight. I don't think about my sister and her choices. I don't think about missing my partner and being lonely in this city.

When I come home from the ceramics studio I feel like I'm doing good work with my life, and am filling the rest of my time with worthwhile things. I feel like I am the person I want to be when I grow up. I feel whole and complete.