Mia Hill. College bound with an athletic scholarship. A go-getter with big dreams and a fully thought out plan to make sure they come true.
But with her father's release from prison looming and the inevitable stresses of adulting, everything she wa...
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There's something to be said about the way clay feels between your fingers. The smooth, cool texture slides through my hands, spinning a cylinder shape into perfection. My fingers slowly glide inside the opening at the top, pulling the thickness evenly across the entire space, watching as the shape elongates with each stroke.
One of my favorite classes in high school was ceramics. I spent a lot of time in my Aunt Lacy's studio growing up. Paints, sculpting, crazy objects spread across her work space screaming at her to become art. I've never had the eye she does for something as simple as a recycled can to become a masterpiece, but I do share the same sense of enjoyment of making art out of nothing. And the wheel, I don't know, there's just something so relaxing about it, about spinning a lump of clay into something more desirable. I'm no expert at it. I definitely don't have the same ease and grace she always had when making something, but I can hold my own. And the fact that I actually get to enjoy this hobby at camp makes it that much better.
"This can pass as a cup, right?" I hear June beside me. "I mean, abstractly speaking, it works, right?"
I slow the wheel, taking a step back from my own work before glancing over to her interesting looking so-called cup. It's leaning to one side, caving in under the imbalance of weight, the bottom still far too thick with a much too thin center. But, like she said, abstractly speaking, a cup it is.
"If that's the look you're going for, then yes, it works."
She lets out a heavy breath, slumping back in her chair before glancing over at me. "Well, shit," she huffs again. "Yours is all badass perfect and mine looks like..."
"Language," I laugh, looking across from us to see a few of the campers laughing. Thankfully, seeing as they're middle schoolers, their vocabulary is not so innocent. Doesn't mean as leaders we should be setting such an example though.
"Sorry," she lifts a hand toward the two girls across from us. They both laugh, shaking it off before returning to their own interesting looking masterpieces in front of them. "I just thought this would be easier. It looks so dang easy when other people do it."
It does look a heck of a lot easier than it is. It took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit to get the hang of it. But now it has that very sense of ease June's referencing, the one that actually brings me calm, that reminds me to breathe. A moment where the rest of the world just fades around you and you get lost in the serenity of it all. I needed this. I needed to just let everything else continue to fade away.
Things with Ben last week hurt in a way I wasn't exactly expecting. He's the first long term relationship I've had, the first one I've somewhat let in. I guess that was the problem though, somewhat isn't fully opening up to someone, and that means he never had all of me. I'm not taking any blame for his actions, I'm not burdening the fact that he cheated. But I think he's had a point through all of this. I never let myself go there with him. And now that things are done, there's a sense of tension off of my shoulders, one I didn't quite know I was holding onto.
