Sometimes I think my ceramics studio and my other work have more in common than people might guess. Both require patience. Both demand you understand the texture of time, how it stretches and contracts depending on who's paying attention.
Today I spent three hours throwing clay on the wheel, my hands remembering something older than language. The wheel turns and turns. Clients are like clay too. Some need firm pressure, some need the gentlest touch. You learn to read what's unspoken.
I was thinking about a client from last week. A quiet man. Not quiet in the way people assume men who hire escorts are quiet. Quiet like he knew how to listen. We talked more than we touched. He told me about rebuilding stone walls on his family's land in Tipperary. The mathematics of stacking stone. How each piece has its own weight, its own gravity.
The kiln is cooling now. Pieces settling into themselves. My body remembers other kinds of settling too. The way intimacy can be about presence more than performance. The way silence can hold more than words.