I feel very grateful to have been blessed with some really amazing clay friends and Gaye Lynn and Michael Hodgson are very high up on my favorites list. They are the first people I turn to when I have a clay question. They might not have all the answers, but they take it upon themselves to help me work my way through the problem. They are my sounding board and my absolute favorite people to geek out with.
Yesterday we met up at a coffee shop in Austin and hours felt like mere minutes as we gushed with excitement about the new things we were each working on. We talked about clay and life and everything in between, barely noticing that everyone around us had left and it was a little past closing time. Our conversations always stay with me long past our time together and as I was working in my studio yesterday, making yunomis, the story Gaye Lynn shared about her grandma kept playing in my head. She told me that her grandmother was passionate about her garden, so much so that up until the age of 96 years she mowed her own yard. I could just picture a determined old woman pushing the lawn mower with gusto because she loved to keep an immaculate garden. Her vitality was a direct result of her passion.
At dinner, my husband and I were having a conversation about how we sometimes unwittingly tie our happiness to successes and failures that are often not in our hands. We feel high when we get validation from the world and low when we face rejection. I shared the story of Gaye Lynn’s grandma and her lawn mower and how her efforts towards taking care of her garden was the thing that gave her joy. At workshops, I sometimes get asked, “What does success look like in your view?” This is a question I have mulled over a lot. Despite having hit many of the milestones that could be interpreted as “making it” in the clay world, will I call it a success? I think of my father. He was always perceived as a very successful person who rose to the the top of his firm at the height of his career. However the day he retired, his life stopped feeling meaningful to him and he quietly slid into deep depression which led to a host of other mental health issues that he has been battling for the past fifteen years. Is that a hallmark of a successful life?
Maybe the younger me would have tied success to achievements but now, having experienced life I would describe it something like this: if I could be as excited about working in clay on the last day of my life as I am today, in other words if I could be like the grandma with her lawn mower, I would consider that a truly successful life. Thank you Gaye Lynn for sharing that beautiful story.
