A happy crouton at last

No one from anywhere would ever mistake me for someone who makes beautiful things with her hands. Not paintings or mosaics or dresses or cupcakes. The only thing I ever made with plasticine was a ball. I made an excellent ball. So what became a near-obsession with working with clay had people worried. It was as if this was the very sign they were awaiting to see if I was taking leave of my senses.

‘Twas not. Rather, the opposite. This was a long time ago, but the situation sounds familiar enough. Everything seemed to be falling apart. I had no focus or I would not focus. The clay all but fell into my lap. In the garden of my place of daily toil, a pottery workshop manifested.

From our first meeting – the smooth, compact, earthy thing yielding to every touch, every impression – I was all in. I didn’t know for what I was in, only that I wanted to take a block of clay to the Red House and make it official.

I made okayish things, vaguely recognisable things, things to learn techniques. But my favourite thing was making the Impossible Thing. If Pottery Lady explained why some things were not attempted or seldom made, I went after it. I still have a large egg made solely to prove point.

And I loved preparing the clay: getting it to the right texture and then kneading it. I’d ignore making things in favour of kneading clay for everyone else in the class. There’s an analyst out there who’s dying to say what this means.

Yoga is my new clay. My friend is still sending videos and we’re meeting virtually once a week. These days, if the car is working well, I think it’s the yoga. If I have a bad day, at the end of it, instead of thinking to go weeping in a cupboard, I’ll do a session.

Packaging is everything. My introduction to yoga came through tapes. A disembodied voice asking me to pull myself deeper into my mind (then, utterly dark) was impossible. Doing the breath work brought on panic attacks.

It was like being haunted. Or worse, hearing voices. The voice was real, but no one understood why it triggered such fear.

Today’s packaging is better. There is still darkness and the breathing is still challenging, but it’s nothing like it used to be. My friend isn’t selling it with spirituality. She’s not saying I have to adopt it as a way of life. She thinks it would be great if I did a lot of sun salutations, but she’s not calling to check up. (If you’d like to talk to her, look for me on LinkedIn and I’ll connect you.)

Best of all, I was the one who asked for it. With one call I banished years of feeling yoga was something other people prescribed with the idea that it was good for everyone. I can just about do the bare minimum but I’m (now not so) secretly trying the really hard shapes. I already want to do more.

I see that now I am the clay. While waiting for water to boil (the single greatest pastime of this house) I practise standing on one leg in the tree pose. Oh, this is all of a nothing to most of you, but to a woman who habitually walks into walls and breaks ankles (not at the same time) it’s a big deal.

Yoga may be cleansing me of my clumsiness. (Different from curing. It’s a feel thing.) Now, if that isn’t extravagant news I don’t know what is.

My friend guides me through paying attention to my body. She reminds me how much strain women carry in their hips and lower back. It’s true. I just never thought of it as an all-women thing.

To every woman who woke up on Wednesday morning to the sobering news that the US was a backward, misogynistic country, consider care of your hips. I wish I had words (or contortions) of comfort to offer men.

I didn’t. I bumbled about trading messages with like-minded friends and really overdoing the caffeine. I’m not yoga enough to find solace in it for something like more Orange Insanity.

Not yet a pretzel, but still working. Or shaping. I’m really not much more than someone who’s trying. I’m still really – in mind and body – a crouton. A cube, yes, but not as dense as, say, sweetbread.

I know there’s one thing I can do: I can put in the work.