Friday, June 20, 2008

As with most of my days, a fairly nondescript work day dominated my waking life today. This, then, is the first mention of one of the hurdles I have to overcome with the help of this blog. "Another generic day at work" is not a suitable result for 24 hours of my existence on this planet. I've come to accept that way too easily, and that kind of complacency is an insult to Ann Marie, who's been carrying the water of hope for me for too thanklessly long.

Still tired, exceptional moments were not easy to come by at work. One thing I've been aware of and nurturing for a while now is the letting go of control and transforming that into a sort of gently guided flow of supporting and energizing others. After another failed attempt at entering management last winter, I became acutely aware of how artificial that pursuit had become for me. I'm not really motivated by status, but I think that after working so long there, I felt I had to have something tangible like that title to justify my continued presence.

But when I let that go, I felt that I relaxed back into myself. I feel more comfortable helping make the engine move than being the figurehead. I help a lot of people get unstuck, I help make opaque processes clear, I'm a catch-all of abilities that we really don't have otherwise, and I work behind the scenes to make the outward face of our team look good and work well. I'm good at it. It's not enough for me in terms of my overall life--I need to revive the creator-spirit in my personal life--but it's good enough within the context of this job. I make a difference and I care about the people I work with, who are good people. That's a pretty lucky spot.

Speaking of creating...

Tonight I spent about 5 1/2 hours at the pottery studio, trying to get all my pieces closer to final. This involved two main tasks: trimming my three most recent (and successful) pots, and glazing my five earlier (and, er, formative) pots. I'm really happy with the three newer ones, as they were my goals for taking this class: a large tumbler for me to drink from at work, a nice, good-sized mug for Ann Marie (Queen of Teas), and a good-sized bowl suitable for eating meals out of. Assuming the firing and glazing goes well, it will be mission accomplished.

Trimming went well and added some nice shape. I also experimented with doing some carving into the surface of a couple pieces; the motifs I chose will add a nice touch of personal meaning to my and AM's cups. Glazing the small pieces is really a guessing game; you can't tell how they'll look until they're done. I'm not sweating it, though; so long as the glazes hold and cover what needs covering, I'll be happy.

This beginning-pottery-wheel class has been interesting for me on personal levels. On one hand, it's a needed move back into creating-space. Spending hours tinkering away tonight, all my cares were pushed aside for the most part, and that deep-creating mindset is a good feeling I've missed over the last few years, as I've allowed it to slip. There's also a sense of coming full circle in a way I haven't quite been able to articulate to myself. My dear ex-wife took a pottery class at Access Arts, and I still have the bowl she gave me sitting on top of a bookshelf in my living room. It keeps sending me a message. I'm deciphering it, slowly. I think the messages I left on Ann Marie's cell phone tonight are a small part of what I'm learning.

After that, biking home at 1:30 am, I checked out a bit of the Euro 2008 soccer match on TV. It was Croatia v. Turkey, and while neither team interests me much, I just feel good when I watch international soccer. At the end of a long, emotionally powerful week, and the end of a long, creative day, that's not such a bad thing. (Though I was too tired to watch it all, and taped the rest. Wonder how it turned out?) (Update, now that I've watched the rest: It was a scoreless draw until the last two minutes of the extra 30 minutes added to regulation, when a seemingly match-winning goal in the next-to-last minute by Croatia was met literally in the last few seconds by one from Turkey, who then went on to win on penalty kicks when Croatia bafflingly missed three of them. Hair-raising!)

And I almost forgot to mention the most important thing I did today--writing a long card to AM. I think how I've managed to not do that over time has become so big and looming that I've internally turned away from dealing with it, and have been in denial, hiding from the resulting increasing sense of inadequacy. This is a start in the right direction.