I take a weights class a few times a week at our local gym. When I was a little girl I was convinced that if I did push-ups and pull-ups like my older brothers did, and ate enough spinach like Popeye the Sailor-Man did, I'd have amazing biceps too. "Here! Feel this!" making a fist and bending my elbow at a ninety-degree angle, I'd motion for any near-by parent or sibling to test the strength of my seven-year-old muscles. "Wooooaaahhhh....you're so STRONG!"
At the end of class, out of breath and sweaty I put away the bar and plates and mutter under my breath that I came here by choice resist the urge to say to the instructor while flexing, "Hey! Check out my biceps!" They never look any different anyway. But I feel different; different in my muscles, but more important I feel my head clear and my thoughts flow better. And that's why I'll be back in a couple of days for another round.
This last week I missed my usual evening class so I could take a pottery class with a friend instead. We've been planning this for a while, so I have occasionally looked at videos of potters making beautiful creations on their wheels. So satisfying to watch; and for me, so difficult to learn.
In my fourth grade class, Mesa Elementary School in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as a part of our learning about New Mexico history, we learned about Maria the Potter. I remember very little about New Mexico's history, but Maria's black on black pottery was seared into my brain forever. Our school being quite progressive for it's time, was very hand's on in it's teaching methodology. We spent hours in the art room with clay learning to coil and pinch and form little pots. I had very little patience and couldn't understand why something that seemed so simple was so incredibly difficult for my young hands.
For Christmas that year, I begged my parents for a pottery wheel. Santa delivered with a mostly plastic battery operated one. I was rapidly becoming frustrated with the little "pinch-pots" we were making at school, and figured having a wheel would magically create me a beautiful pot similar to the beautiful artwork of Maria Martinez. My mother told me to keep paying attention to the instructor in my art class and be patient with myself. Not the easiest thing for a nine-year-old.
I tucked my toy pottery wheel under my bed and pulled out my dolls and all of their dolly accessories. Loving a piece of clay into becoming something beautiful takes patience and time. Loving a baby-doll was instant gratification. I took them outside and changed them from their sleepers to bonnets and dresses, all while putting art and clay and wheels out of my mind.
"Hey! Do you want to make some pottery?!" Chelsea asked Alisa and me at lunch a few weeks ago. Chelsea is an artist by nature and also by trade. Alisa is artsy in every way imaginable. Me? I don't feel terribly artistic but as an appreciator and lover of other's art, and feeling honored to maybe in some way learn a little something nearly fifty years after my last pottery-making attempt, I replied with an enthusiastic "for SURE!" I smiled at the two artists sitting at my table, while inside thinking "Maybe older and wiser can apply to this moment."
I met Chelsea at Cindy and Steve's home. Steve is a craftsman and potter. Cindy scooped up Chelsea's baby and Chelsea and I followed Steve to his studio. Evidence of his craft was all throughout. There were two wheels with stools arranged for the both of us. After several minutes of "oooohhh'ing and aaahhhh'ing he handed us our sections of cool clay. Showing us how to slap it between our hands to remove any air-bubbles while forming them into balls we were ready to throw them onto the wheels.
Chelsea was a duck to water; peanut-butter to jam; peas to corn. You get the drift. I, on the other hand, struggled. The clay would stay circular, then I'd apply too much pressure on one side and soon it would spin lop-sided. Steve, smiling softly, would suggest what I'd most likely done wrong and then reshape it for me so I could begin again. Chelsea made two or three vessels that Steve would then have her cut in half so they could observe the "rule of thirds" and check for the thickness and thinness of the clay along the height of it so she could see where to make any corrections. I looked at my lump of now-too-wet clay and said to Steve, "There's a life-lesson in this somewhere." He said "You bet there is! When you make a mistake, you just start over!"
Sometimes, I think about the fact that my mother-in-law Pearl didn't learn to play the piano until she was fifty-three years old. And a few years later she even learned to play the organ and became the organist for her church. I love to play the piano. I'm terrified to play if I know someone is listening. A piano solo gone awry in my childhood, and I simply quit learning or playing.
There are so many things to learn in this world. One of the gifts of middle-age is that I have lost a lot of the angst I once had. Or at least if something is difficult or I don't understand it, I am more prone to ask for help and to be more patient with others and with myself. When I was young, I thought I had the rest of my life to learn. Now that I'm older I know that I am living in the rest of my life. I have become more open to trying new things and challenging myself.
On the other hand. I'm not entirely nuts. There are some things I will never do. Like climbing on, over, or around things that are precarious and high. I have my limits. Maybe when I'm in my nineties I'll tackle that one.
Yorumlar