Let’s see. It’s still winter. I’m done with it, but it’s not done with us. No use complaining (but that’s not stopping me). Weather isn’t personal. The same rain/snow/slush falls on all of us. The same ice clumps chunk off our tires. We drive the same roads that are scabby with ice or as slippery as Crisco.
Impeachment rages on and on. We know how this will end but the players must follow the script anyway.
No wonder I obsess about clay. I revel in the small personal thrill of throwing porcelain for the first time in years. Voilà! A small vessel I hope to make into an old-fashioned perfume bottle. Not to hold perfume. Just because I like the idea of them.
Maybe I’ll make stoneware wine goblets next. The sturdy kind without stems. Or stoneware tumblers for iced tea and mojitos with fresh mint. Mint that I’ll pinch from a plant in next summer’s garden.
Why not stoneware flower pots? That’s genius! When I’m not a potter, I’m a gardener. I could bring together two of my passions.
What about platters and bowls with sayings? Hmmm. I hate art that exhorts me to Live! Love! Laugh! Shut up, I think, even though I do want to live, love, and laugh. Isn’t stamping Ellen-isms into clay at odds with that? Too bad. I’m doing it.
I’ve been holed up in the pottery studio with my potter’s wheel spinning fast. It corkscrews my focus tighter and tighter until all I see is the lump of clay that I’m forcing to be centered. Even though it resists, throwing off stray blobs and splashes of watery clay.
Hours pass. My back and shoulders ache.
Weeks pass.
Now when I leave the studio at 5:15, it’s light out. The big wheel of the seasons is also turning. Slowly, slowly, but turning. Bringing me back to center.
Comments
9 responses to “Still Winter (Don’t Read This Cranky Blog)”
The last couple of weeks have been quite “balmy” and I’ve been waiting for the other winter shoe to drop. But in the meanwhile, looks like you’ve found a great way to ignore the weather. Go for it!
What a great post! Loved the image of time passing as you spin the potter’s wheel. Gorgeous. And yay to longer days! I feel my spirits lifting as the days grow longer, too.
Thanks, Susanne!
Winter can get us down, and it doesn’t hurt to complain about it now and then! Keep up the good work at the pottery wheel, that seems to help!
Thanks for reading my cranky blog despite the warning!
Loved this stream of thoughts, Ellen. Winter does wear us down, doesn’t it? Marvelous that you are working the blues away in your studio. Loved the Ellenism on the saucer. You could sell those on Etsy!
Thank you!
Yesterday’s Strib reported that we just experienced the cloudiest / gloomiest January in decades so your reminder that our days are getting longer arrived at just the right time to brighten my mood.
Glad it helped!