May: on the illusion of control
A reflection on how a pottery class exposed my desire for control
I’ve been taking a pottery course at a local studio on Wednesday evenings, learning the basics of different hand building and wheel techniques. It’s a beginner’s course, which I very much am. Though I did take ceramics in high school and spent countless childhood hours molding Sculpey polymer clay into figurines and beads. I loved the wheel in my high school class- I remember feeling actually present and calm in my body while just resting my hands on the wet spinning clay. The sound of the wood tools scraping excess off the metal base. The smell of the slip and the glaze.
The class I’m in now is a ‘dip your toes’ type of experience, basically introducing techniques and practicing them, then moving on the next week. The hand building is fine but I was really waiting for the week we got to do the wheel. When it finally came, we gathered our tools, weighed out 1.5lbs of clay, and sat at our wheels.
“Ok I’m going to come around and center everyone’s clay and then walk you through the steps to pull up the walls,” our teacher Sam stated in his very gentle way.
I must confess the immediate internal side eye that I gave this kind man (externally I think I gave a brief less-rude-than-side-eye squint).
I had been looking forward to centering my clay, which is kind of a hot take because a lot of people dread this step. It’s the very first thing you do. You slap the ball of clay onto the wheel and then use pressure and body weight to push the clay into itself until it is ‘centered’ and spinning evenly. It is harder than it sounds, and if your clay isn’t centered, your piece will be uneven. Your hands are the boundaries that the lumpy clay has to conform to at high speed rotation. It takes strength and stability and physicality.
It’s not that I’m good at centering clay- I just wanted to do it myself. I kind of know the steps from previous experience. And I wanted the satisfaction of feeling it spin smoothly after manhandling it out of its unwieldiness.
He sat down at my neighbor’s wheel, mine was next. And I actually did ask- “can we not center it ourselves?” (Minimal sass, I promise). ‘Not in this class,’ was the very reasonable answer given- citing time constrictions, difficulty level, other classes that cover that etc etc etc.
So he centered my clay.
And you know what, he did a great job. And he did it in about 40 seconds. And I made a really nice bowl, which I had time to do because I didn’t spend 15 minutes trying to center the dang clay myself and then needing him to do it anyways.
But after thinking about it… why was I lowkey offended that he would do this critical step for me?
I will tell you why.
It’s because for many years, I’ve been trying to center the lumps of my own life into order, and calmness, and balance- and I’ve been doing it myself.
It’s because something in my soul interpreted his sensible time-conscious decision as a statement- “you aren’t capable of doing this yourself.”
Honestly, I don’t have a competitive bone in my body. Competition makes me cringe actually. But I will absolutely want to prove you wrong if you question my capability (this is pride by the way, super fun issue, a lot of repentance required).
I want to fix my own problems (and yours tbh). I want to not need help, ever. I want to understand everything, at all times. I want to figure out a way to stomp my sharp questions and experiences into a smooth path that makes sense. Concisely- I want Control. And it’s probably not even that I really want these things- it’s just that for a long time I did kind of have to do it myself. Other peoples’ needs took precedence early on in my life. So I learned hyper-independence and self-reliance. I learned to suffer quietly out of sight, with only a few closest friends really aware of that reality (I love you).
And though years of close community and therapy and prayer and frankly, just hard emotional work have brought me much freedom from these mindsets, I still feel the fingers of these lies like pressure on a bruise. “It’s still on you to fix this,” they say. “Just get it together, why haven’t you figured this out yet?” “Why haven’t you moved on?”
So I have tried to ‘center’ my own life to quiet the voices, and I think this has expressed itself in very practical ways. For example…
Spending a lot of time journaling or processing to be able to define exactly why something happened, why I feel a certain way, and how to make it better
Making smart, low-risk choices about school and career that ‘make sense’
Consuming so many resources about personality types and psychology and child development to understand myself and others
Withholding my own needs, opinions, or desires to keep the peace, guarantee no one is mad at me, and prevent disappointment
Over-extending beyond my capacity to help people with their emotional and practical needs (wow it feels good to be needed tho)
Distancing myself from my family to distance myself from drama (read: pain and grief)
Now, none of these things are particularly wrong or bad- but I know that at times I have used these strategies to create a semblance of control and direction in my life. It has kind of worked, because I was genuinely doing my best with what I had at the time. And God doesn’t wait until we make perfect choices to start working through them.
But I think it’s time to allow stronger hands to do the centering now. I have reached the limits of my own hands to pressure the bumps out of my own life. I’m learning to sit still and let the Holy Spirit settle things in my heart that I have worked years to tame. I’m learning to stop trying to understand or define every angle of a feeling, and to just let the feeling exist without ‘fixing’ it. To trust other people to love me and help me. To accept that my own efforts can not eradicate all the wobbles of my life- and that this is not a sign of failure, but of a need to submit to someone wiser with steadier hands, who can bring stillness to deepest parts of me than I don’t even know how to reach.
In that picture from class, I notice how clean my hands are sitting at the wheel in front of my perfectly centered clay- he has done the messy and hardest work for me. I showed up to the class, and I gathered the tools. And now I am free to play and see what shape emerges.
I’m reminded of a YouTube video by worship leader Olivia Buckles that I have returned to so many times. It’s 30 minutes of her singing verses and spontaneous thoughts about letting go of control. I’ll post it below if you find yourself needing help with this too :)
“Let it fall off… why all the control? You don’t make the sun to rise. Are you afraid if you let go everything will fall apart? Do you not remember who made you?” (~9 minutes in)
*I would like to apologize to my British friends for all the spelling anxiety you may have had while reading this, I know that you would spell it ‘centre’ but I am not there yet in my cultural acclimation.
Breathing In: Things I took in this month
🎧 Listening: Years ago I made a playlist of songs from the 90’s in the vein of Sheryl Crowe and Faith Hill- basically just ladies expressing their angsty emotions in uptempo acoustic 90’s bops (lyric sample: “nothing’s fine I’m TORN”). This month it was sunny for an unprecedented 3+ weeks in a row, so this playlist got a surprising amount of play. I think I started this playlist during Covid when all we could do was drive to the beach on the weekends. Enjoy lol.
🎥 Watching: The Phoenician Scheme- Wes Anderson
Another Wes Anderson movie that looks exactly like a Wes Anderson movie. Visually, nothing out of his wheelhouse and I know some people feel like his style has become a parody or imitation of itself, but I still genuinely enjoy watching his films. I really liked this one and was genuinely delighted by the visual choices and genuinely funny moments. I like the weird mix of chaos and symmetry, where everything is meticulously arranged in frame, even the messes. The Phoenician Scheme is about a business tycoon with questionable ethics who arranges for his daughter to come home to learn how to manage his business affairs under the assumption that he may die soon, having survived many assassination attempts due to his questionable business decisions. His daughter, who is a nun and never really knew her family, goes through a process of uncovering her identity, learning about her family of origin, and weighing her morals and faith against her father’s line of business. Though these themes are explored with deadpan dialogue and very little explicit acknowledgement, I find myself still thinking about it days later and kind of relating to the daughter- there was something heartwarming about the love that they discover they have for each other despite the difficulty of their past and seemingly incompatible present realities. A bit close to home (though my dad’s business is ethical, and I am not a nun (yet)).
🎨 Making: My first time life drawing
My friend Libby is getting married next month and for her Hen Do (aka bachelorette), she opted for a day of all of her favorite things. A park run, coffee, pizza, time to chat, and life drawing at the end of the night at a local creative space. I have never drawn a live model before- it’s probably been years since I’ve earnestly tried to draw anything really. But this was such a fun and suprisingly meaningful experience. To be honest, there aren’t many situations in life where you can be around a naked person in a not-weird way. Unless you work in health care. Which is weird in its own way. But to see this beautiful older lady, so comfortable in her skin and so unphased by her body being perceived, it was really powerful. And made me more comfortable in my own human body. As a woman (and probably true of men as well), there is just a lot of pressure around your body looking a certain way. And it’s just been a while since I’ve seen someone so accepting and so respectful of her own body. Bodies are so beautiful and taking time to notice the details of human design was refreshing. I’m not that great at drawing but it was fun to try, and it made me want to learn how to actually draw.
These are the days of: banana peanut butter toast, long walks, sunny weather, upping my protein intake, Tylenol cold and flu meds, early morning quiet time, spearmint tea, bank holidays