8/17/26 - 8/25/26: Everything is just practicing.

8/17/26

I keep meaning to count the amount of bisqued pieces I’ve accumulated and reveal the startling number here, but now I refuse. The number is too unhinged and overwhelming. If I’m prioritizing inner peace, I just can’t think about my excessive bisque accumulation too much. Eventually I’ll have time to start glazing again. In the meantime, it’s not like I’m going to stop touching clay just to lessen the growing insanity of my bisque collection.   

Life seems like a disaster, and then out of nowhere, glimmers of hope gush forth with inevitable force, like blindingly spectacular diamonds in a hairball. A surprise wrapped up in a mess. Some days hope feels strictly finite, though it persists and always shows its strength somehow. I guess things have to be really bad for me to doubt hope’s charming perpetuity. 

 

Maybe things will work out. Maybe you just have to get really tired, curled up in the uncomfortable misery, for the hope to creep in. Maybe exhaustion is always key in more easily letting go of everything that doesn’t feel right in your life. All the wrong stuff just kind of falls off of you like a molting, naturally out of necessity. A molting seems like a nice thing to experience at least once a month. Once a week maybe? And it would definitely have similar, yet more intense, health benefits to the sauna experience. You’d compliment your friend: “Wow, this week’s molting has really made your skin glow!”  

A ceramic artist whose work keeps popping up in my mind is Jongjin Park, and I’m more than pleased about the intrusion. He’s based in South Korea and creates these infinitely intricate sculptures from paper towels dipped in watered-down ceramic slip:

 

His name is simple. And the connection had a strength with ease. Joy, straightforward, later muddled in a mess. A connection I’d never think to toss aside, and would always give a chance to. A full chance. Certain happiness felt with certain people can be hard to ignore and painful to let go of. And sometimes you just don’t want to shut a door completely on someone.

 

In my current isolation all I fantasize about is joy. How do I keep any aspect of it in my life right now? 

 

Currently, this is how:

-By taking online classes toward my degree. 

-By making miniature watercolor paintings. 

-By finding any free moment to go to the pottery studio to be free with clay:

-By making time to be social even if it’s just once or twice a month, whether it’s in the pottery studio, or a short walk with a friend. 

 

8/20/26

I don’t think I’ll ever forgive the doctor that misdiagnosed my mom’s cancer. She diagnosed it as something so severely antithetical to cancer: a nothing-to-worry-about, benign-as-fuck thing, highly treatable and gone within the week. I had to be on the phone with this doctor today, and although I hate her with all fiber of my being, I was calm and acted like there as no hatred there whatsoever. I can only explain this ability as a side effect of my extreme tiredness. It’s really seeping into my brain. I’m so tired all the time that sometimes I’ll say out loud to myself, “Wait, am I really here? Is this really happening?” Surrealism thrives in the world of sleep deprivation. 

8/23/26

I’d argue that fresh fruit is super important for Pac-Man. More important than the ghosts he eats. They keep him strong and healthy; the cherries, the oranges, the peaches. I’m guessing all the blue ghosts would give Pac-Man indigestion. Ghosts generally don’t seem like a smart thing to try to eat.

 

I wonder if people with avoidant personality disorder are somehow naturally better at Pac-Man.

 

I have memories of playing the arcade version of Pac-Man at the laundromat, the place where my dad did his laundry after the divorce. I also played it a lot at my hometown bowling alley that has since been gutted of all its arcade games and personality. 

 

I had a creative clay idea and rather immediately started it at my studio one night when I could get away. The sooner I act on a creative idea the happier I am. I often have too many of them and get flustered and don’t know where to start. These days I’m lucky if one sneaks in. My brain is steeped in care-giving right now, not art. 

 

I never imagined that for most of my thirties I’d be care-giving a sick parent. The weight of it is unimaginable. It’s like you’re wearing a deep-sea diving suit with extra lead weights strapped to you and someone throws you into the Mariana Trench; disturbingly inescapable. 

8/25/26

I love swimming and I love lists, so I was thrilled to stumble upon a simple, comprehensive list of the many ways swimming is salubrious:

-reduced tension

-improved mood

-improved focus

-body awareness

-improved flexibility

-fat burning

-stress relief

-better posture

-calm mind

-joint friendly

-full body workout

-enhanced breathing

-core strength

-improved endurance

-better sleep

-improved circulation

 

 

I’m going to be partaking in a lot of this kind of writing now that I’m back in an art history class:

[On Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son painting:] This is one of my favorite paintings. I love how vast the interpretations of this painting can be. It is a myriad of paintings in one. At first glance I just see a portrait of cannibalism. I then see a more complex portrait of the pained, grotesque desperation of hunger. It showcases the deepest depravity. Darkness usually hides all, but here it feels like it's being used as a reiteration of the darkness of humanity, highlighting it ever so effectively. Looking at it longer, I see a portrait of the true nature, realities, and trappings of capitalism. Goya creates such deeply interesting paintings. 

I cannot stop listening to Library Copy Do Not Remove by Discovery Zone. It compels me into a peaceful trance, especially when I’m making art. I also happened upon the gorgeous song I’m Not There by Chelsea Wolfe today and listened to it about a million times of course. 

I love how everything is just practicing. Every single movement you make. Every speech and whisper and word written, and friendship formed, and dream dreamt and sleep slept, and garden watered, and cat loved, and beauty studied. Every feeling in your body is you practicing being human. Viewing life as a constant practicing is much more relaxing than the alternative, which our blood-sucking capitalist society has instilled deeply in our psyche: win the race, above all else. 

 

Knowing there is no final destination of perfection is thrilling. It’s all just a fucking whirlwind of chaos, with insanely beautiful moments of respite shoved in there every once in awhile, that glue your feet to the ground and sew your heart inside the moment.