Lessons In Ceramics

After retiring from soccer I began a desperate mission to find an activity that could possibly replace playing the beautiful game. I quickly realized that being a beginner in a new activity would would be hard pressed to replace a game I had loved for 23 years, so I made a project out of trying things. I called this project the Wandering Woman, and set out to try one new activity for each letter of the alphabet. The hope was that by the time I got through the alphabet I would have my new “thing”. I kept notes thinking I would write about it some day, got about half the letters done and let it go dormant.

The half-alphabet mission helped me get through the initial transition as well as further dissect what it was about soccer that I loved so much. I broke down what I got out of soccer: being part of a team, a competitive outlet, a place to express aggression and physicality, problem solving, strategy, heckling opportunities, a chance to sprint over and over and over and over and over, joy, dealing with highs and lows of winning and losing, and learning to lead and learning to follow, to name a few.

Coaching was a good stop gap for a while, but one of the things that has actually best filled the soccer-sized hole in my heart is ceramics. While it’s not a team sport, nor a competitive outlet, it is quite physical, requires a lot of strategy and problem solving, and similarly presents many opportunities to celebrate highs and tolerate lows (RIP to the box of freshly- made tiles that I dropped in the parking lot last week). Ceramics is helping heal both my heart and my brain. Also, my giving love language is crafts (and receiving is snacks, take note) and now I have a steady stream of goods to share, and for once it’s a craft that is actually useful for others!

A few things I have learned from ceramics:

Patience: this one is very much a work in progress. It feels really nice to not be in a hurry since for most projects, there is no timeline. So many parts of life feel hurried, it’s nice to have something that gets to move at its own pace.

Boundaries: ahem. To the dude who decided to give me unsolicited “lessons” for three weeks straight. I don’t want to see videos of you throwing. Or pictures of you at Burning Man. Thanks, but no thanks.

Non-attachment: there are many steps to a finished pottery piece. Only so many of them can be controlled. As a rule of thumb, it’s ideal to not get attached to a piece until it’s finished. And even then, hold it tight in your hands, but loose in your heart.

Knowing when to ask for help: I am a big fan of learning by doing. I like knowing that I can try things, find out what doesn’t work well and THEN ask someone for help on those parts.

So why am I telling you all this?  In a culture of side hustles, and perpetual hustle hustle, I am a big fan of letting hobbies be hobbies. They serve a very different role in our lives than work. I think it is important to have at least one hobby that gets you all excited to get up on the weekends and go play. Whether you’re playing with soccer balls or balls of clay it doesn’t matter, just find something you enjoy doing purely for the sake of doing it. For me, learning and fun go hand in hand. Part of the reason soccer was intriguing to me for so long was that I never had it “figured out”. Every game was different. Towards the end of my career I would ask myself before playing “what can I do for this team today?” and then I would go figure out what that was (at that point I was playing with many different teams and groups, all different levels). Ceramics feels similar in its dynamic nature. Hobbies that challenge my brain and my body are very fun for me. I want to encourage you to find non-work things that feel satisfying for you. And if you don’t know what those things are, I’ll send you the letters I never finished in the Wandering Woman alphabet and you can pick up where I left off.

And my parting thought: just because you enjoy something now doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it for forever. That’s the best thing about doing it purely for enjoyment - when it stops being fun you can move on to something else. Our hobbies do not have to define us or become our identity.