The Wheel Goes Round and Round

2/15/24

I tap the foot pedal of my potter’s wheel, arch my back and stretch as the wheel comes to a stop. I throw my sponge into a bucket of cloudy clay water and push my seat back to assess my piece from a new vantage point. 

While the vessel is tall and symmetrical, it is fanned at the lip giving the appearance of a vase, perhaps one intended to hold clusters of wildflowers, or more likely, weeds and dandelions Everett and Penelope pick on our way to the park.

The problem is this: I’m not trying to design fanning floral vessels. I’m attempting to create mugs— tall mugs, short roundy mugs, mugs with handles and mugs without, and mugs for homemade cappuccinos, lattes and piping hot cups of green tea.  

I scan the room for the ceramics instructor; he meets my gaze and makes his way to my wheel. Together we assess the want-to-be mug turned wild-flower vessel and I ask if he can see a way to transform it into a mug, but he laughs and explains, “Your beverage will pour all over you if you try and drink out of that.” 

I attempt to salvage the design by explaining, “It’s a limited edition for the ‘Oasis’ line —  designed for those who are very, very, thirsty AND need to be cooled off.” My friends laugh from their wheels, but I’m watching the instructor’s face, and my idea isn’t selling.  

It’s been a week since I’ve sat down at the potter’s wheel and I can’t stop thinking about my supposed-to-be mug. In my mind’s eye I replay the movement of the clay and the motion of my hands, trying to find where and how my piece gravitated from imagined mug to a dandelion vessel. 

When it comes to problems, creative or otherwise, my mind operates in a circular fashion. In the same rhythm as the potter’s wheel, I cycle and circle, cycle and circle, stop, assess and repeat. My mind is in constant motion, because outside the ceramic studio and designing mugs, as Nora’s caregiver, there is always a problem to solve.

It’s been two weeks since Nora came home from the hospital and my mind continues to spin with experiences from her week-long stay. I’m sifting through difficult moments and emotions that followed me home: anger, feelings of helplessness, shame and fear. I’m problem-solving in an effort to prepare myself for the next wave of illness, symptoms or signs, and medical system concerns. At the heart of it all, I’m attempting to avoid pain: mine and my family’s. However, unlike adjusting my technique at the potter’s wheel, there often is no solution. 

Even still, I think the clay is helping. It’s the creating, with mind and body in alignment, that feels like coming home to myself — home filled with wildflowers, dandelions and my choice of ceramic mugs for tea.

Photo credit: Colleen Dong