Acne

I could hear it in my tone of voice, my view of the world as a hostile place. Court and cancer and war, the unrelenting pandemic does that to me. My friend texed me, "Oliver has COVID! I have tested negative twice but feel run down." The frown on my face seemed deeply etched. But I went to my first ceramics class in months anyway. Anyway even though I felt like my guns were seated right on my hip. And even though I might have otherwise just stayed in bed. I arrived early and launched into glazing a dinner plate I had thrown on the ceramic's wheel last Spring. Of couerse the damn glaze mixture was too thin and the container not deep enough to fully cover the plate. The ceramic whistles I made into faces and was just inspecting now, all looked like they had acne. That stupid glaze, never comes out like I want. Yet, twenty minutes later the embrace of the other women students, the kind instructor, and the mud in my hands settled my nervous sytem to a more normal hum. It's not all unrelenting.