what comes up

I've had the words of my kids' clay instructor floating around in my head the last couple of days. She was talking about how sometimes in clay you lose your piece because it might blow up unexpectedly in the kiln. She said, "No one likes to lose something you have spent a lot of time on, but you should know it is a possibility when you are working with clay." I loved her honesty. I have been thinking about it and how it relates to life in general because it seems so true. We don't usually like to lose something we have spent a lot of time on.

In fact, I was remembering an article I read a while back about decision making. One of the points the article made was that it was hard for people to change- jobs, homes, degrees, etc- because they falsely assume that if they have invested a certain amount of time into something and then change their minds or simply change to something else, they will have wasted the time and effort spent on the original project. But of course, life is a process and all that you have done in the past and all that you will do in the future contributes to who you are.

From here my thoughts moved on to knitting. One of the reasons I love knitting so much is that if I finish a project and it isn't the way I had envisioned it or- let's face it- it just doesn't fit, I can rip out the yarn and start over or rip out the yarn and use it for a new project or rip out the yarn and fix it. I admit this isn't always a exciting prospect. Sometimes- usually all the time- when I finish a project, I just want it to be done. I have a sock, for instance, sitting in my knitting bag right now that is too small. I know that I can rip it out. It will take a few hours to rip out what I need to do and re-knit the toe to the size I want. No biggie. Oh- but I am resisting. So much resistance over that sock. Why didn't it turn out? Why did I ignore my thoughts that it was too small before I sewed up the toe? Why...?

And then it struck me that knitting and clay could be great creative counterparts. Clay can give you an opportunity to make something permanent. You can mold and remold clay over and over again and then once clay is fired, then glazed, then fired again, it is a permanent structure. You practice by making more permanent structures, working on the process in that way. And as the instructor said, there is a possibility that it will blow up or crack or break in some other way, on the way to becoming permanent. You can lose something when you work with clay.

With knitting, there is a possibility of losing something as well but for me it is more about losing possibility. It can be very challenging for me to commit to a project with a particular yarn. The skeins can sit for months, years even, lovely in their potential. I have even been known to knit something with a particularly lovely yarn and rip it out only to roll it back up to sit on the shelf, unformed again. And sometimes again. There can definitely be a lack of commitment for me when it comes to yarn. Perfectionism steps in and asks that if I make something with that yarn, it better be the perfect thing. And on and on with the possibilities of the unformed...

{Of course I understand that nothing- not even clay- can ever really be permanent and that every decision in one direction, cuts off a possibility in another. Even unformed yarn is not formed. That theory can go where form ultimately cannot is also not lost on me. What I do enjoy is working through these processes in different ways- through writing, through thoughts, through knitting, through parenting, through meditating, through whatever life brings up, whatever life offers, whatever I choose...}