Tag: pastapottery

Home. 10 November, 2019.

…a braver man I never met.

Gary is finally home.

It doesn’t hold all of his cremains that I have left.
It doesn’t have to. It holds enough.
I’ll scatter the rest in places he liked.

I think I can finally go, now.

clockwise from top left: day 1, raw. step 2, bone dry. step 3, bisque fired. step 4, applying wax resist. step 5, glazing before the salt fire.

17 September, 2019

bisque-fired black clay cinerary, going into the salt kiln on Halloween.

Sunday brings your birthday, and with it, more work on the cinerary I’ve finally been able to make for you. I thought I’d be able to make it and fire it that first year — I thought a lot of things that first year.

I thought I’d be able to get this place cleaned up and out.
I thought I’d be able to handle getting our taxes done.
I thought I’d be able to apply for your social security death benefit.
I thought I thought I thought…

I knew nothing of the overwhelming and all-consuming grief that would completely take over my life: not all of it, no, but it is insidious, its tendrils curling into every single aspect of my life, twisting around the things that keep me going, threatening to cut off air, blood, sanity.

I am not the same person I was a year ago.
I am not the same person I was two years ago.
I have become more patient and less tolerant.
More open and less willing to bend.
More sure, more confident. Quieter, calmer.
I react differently to things now.
I am able to let go, to let things slip away when they matter not.
It is taking me by surprise; I wonder how you would react to this girl?
This girl who has finally had to grow up?

It’s you, you know, you’re the reason. The catalyst.

I only wish you could see me now.
I think you would be proud.
I know I am.

7 april, 2019. 10:16pm

today i wanted to be dead.

i didn’t want to kill myself,
i didn’t want to die.
i wanted to be dead.
i wanted to not be anymore.

i was dysphoric and abyssally depressed and griefstruck and i
had to pull the car off the road because i could not see the road through my tears.

music blasting, car rocking from the drafts of the other cars speeding by, shoulders shaking. screaming into the sky. i can’t. i can’t. i can’t do this anymore. why? why? why?

weeping. wailing. shrieking. howling in pain.
desperately calling up mental images to save me, of those i love, of those i do not want to live without. replaying their voices, their words, their murmurs of love, of promises. bring me back. keep me here. keep me safe.

i am having a very hard time wanting to be alive right now.

this too, shall pass. and it is all for the good.

i didn’t want to kill myself,

i wanted to not be anymore.

i got back on the road, got to where i’d set out to be, inexpertly rolled a joint, smoked half of it, got to work. two and a half hours later, my rage was exhausted, driven out by the tediousness of the work, for when your work, your passion requires exquisite concentration you really can think of nothing else. or at least, only the good things. and as i listened to delicious music and smoked delectable herb and mesmerized myself thinking about delightful people and mindbending experiences, this beautiful thing came to life in my hands.


stage 1 — porcelain greenware