so much frustration and so much beauty at the same time. the kid couldn't center to save their life, the clay just wobbling and collapsing, but they kept at it and it came out twisted and strange, utterly unusable and utterly perfect, i wanted to smash it and keep it forever all at once. they said it was supposed to be a mug and i wanted to tell them it was so much more than a mug it was a testament to failing and trying and failing better but i just nodded and smiled and felt the grit under my fingernails and the clay drying between my knuckles, the kiln humming a low song that i almost didn't hear, a song of heat and transformation, a song of surrender. teaching is reminding yourself why you started, why you keep going even when everything falls apart, even when the wheel spins too fast or too slow or not at all, even when the clay cracks and crumbles and refuses to be shaped. i keep smashing things because i'm looking for something truer than beautiful, something honest even if it's ugly, even if it breaks. maybe that's what art is, the courage to break things and start again, the willingness to fail beautifully, like that kid's horrible perfect mug.