All my life I've had great friends who are great at art...I just am not!
It's too much pressure, to try to create something beautiful, creative, unique, appreciated by others. I can never handle it. I end up failing every time, and then it is no fun.
Last week I let my mother-in-law talk me into taking Esme to this bowl making event. There's a local fundraiser they do every year where people in town donate money to make bowls, then there's a big soup dinner and at the dinner you can buy the bowls people made. I love the idea of all of it so I got talked into going...Also ME (the M-I-L) and Esme do art projects together all the time. She is the arty influence in my daughter's life and I am so grateful for it (takes a lot of pressure off me).
So I thought how bad can this be? We'll take Esme together, there will be two of us to help her, it'll be fun. And I have always wanted to try a pottery wheel...so this is a good excuse, plus ME will make sure everyone knows it was her idea to bring Esme so I won't look like the crazy one showing up with a three year old.
Well...mid-last week ME and her partner came down with the plague...or something equally debilitating, seriously, they've both been really sick. But I didn't actually think at all about how that might impact this evening. Then! Today at work I came down with what I think might be the second migraine I've ever had in my life. So painful I left work early, came home and took a nap.
By 6 my head was still slightly pulsating so I started trying to call ME to tell her I couldn't go and she should swing by and get Esme on her way. As she is one of the only houses left on the face of the planet without call waiting, her phone was busy the first five times I tried. Before I could try again my phone rang and it was her calling to say she couldn't go (thanks plague).
These are the moments where I truly love being a mom. Pop two more advil...and reiterate to the concerned child how excited you actually are to go
Needless to say I was the one with the crazy idea to bring a three year old bowl making.
So off we went...and let me tell you, high school memories do not always fade...I still suck at art. And there I was, in class with all the cool kids who knew exactly what they were doing with their perfectly round bowls, smoothing the sides as they raised higher...while mine?
Well...there was the one time where my nail sliced the top of the bowl right off the bottom as the wheel spun around. Then there was the attempt where Esme and my fingers went right through the bottom of the bowl, then there was the time where the bowl got so out of center (don't be deceived the bowl was out of center every time, this one was just really bad) that one side folded over on itself in this really cool wave design.
That was the time Esme said really loudly "look what my mom's bowl just did, that's a cool wave!"
I have to say honestly if I hadn't lost all confidence by that point I would have left the cool design and tried to salvage my pride and my bowl. That wave action had a lot of potential. But as the woman was teaching us she had talked about people filling their bowls with soup, and nourishment, and our contribution, and I looked at my bowl and thought no one can eat out of that.
I guess what I should have thought was that people need beauty as well as nourishment and maybe this is a funky bowl...maybe they drink out of this bowl. But my confidence was too far gone and yet again I forgot that I was still in control.
I did leave determined of one thing. I'm going to try again, someday when I've trimmed my nails and don't feel like all 12 people standing around are watching and judging. I definitely want to try again. I guess I'll just have to leave my fear of failure at home.
On the upside, by the time we left my migraine was gone!
I realize a picture of our clay caked selves would have been the perfect addition to this post but we were both so exhausted by being there 1/2 an hour past Esme's bedtime the idea slipped right past me...ah well.
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