Bright Eyes Again?

Last Saturday morning, in synagogue, Danny Kahan, a friend and, incidentally, a psychologist, said to me: "The light has gone back on in your eyes."

"You're a very perceptive person, so maybe you're right," I answered.

It's true, which doesn't mean that I'm not overwhelmed by sadness about Asher a few times every day.

Why?

I've found a new passion: pottery. It came on so suddenly, that I'm puzzled by it. What am I to make of this new infatuation?

About two months ago, without any conscious premeditation or planning, I did a search for "Ceramics Classes" on the internet, found a studio that sounded flexible and receptive, within walking distance from my home, called up, went over to see the place, signed up, and since then I've gone for around eight two-and-a-half hour sessions.

I started off working on the wheel right away, and, despite the frustrating difficulty of centering lumps of clay on the spinning wheel, I loved it. I knew this was the beginning of a new phase in my life.

I was talking about it with Marcel Chetrit, the man who has been giving me massages for several years, first shiatsu, now tui-na, a Chinese technique. He said that clay is one of the 5 elements in Chinese medicine: air, fire, water, metal, and earth. By working in clay, I am reconnecting with my earth roots, from which Asher's death detached me. My uncharacteristically impulsive decision to begin doing pottery came from my unconscious understanding of what I need.

By the way, this kind of impulsive decision may be uncharacteristic of me, but it would have been highly characteristic of Asher. The moment he knew what he should do, he did it. Which is not to say that he didn't mull over hard decisions, such as quitting one job and taking another, or that he didn't prepare himself for a new course of action.

So I see my new involvement in pottery as being connected to Asher in several important ways:

The curative way, as a form of occupational therapy, or as a way of connecting with my earth roots (if you want to buy into the Chinese medicine shtick). I see it as restorative in a different way. I have never been a very athletic person, though there were times in my life when I swam regularly and jogged pretty seriously, but I am nevertheless a very physical person. My work is all about words, farther and farther away from anything more physical than the tapping of a keyboard. Now pottery is giving me a physical outlet for expression, more physical than making music on a wind instrument, which is in fact quite a physical activity, involving your whole body.

Losing Asher was a blow to the wholeness of my sense of self. Turning to the intensely physical experience of molding clay with my hands, including the task of centering the clay on the wheel, is a way back toward some kind of wholeness, around the hollow his death has left.

The creative way. Asher was a very creative person, always involved with materials of various kinds (but not clay, as far as I remember), so he would have approved of my taking up ceramics and identified with it. Also, Asher played the creative role in our family dynamic. Now that he isn't around to do that, we all have to pick up the torch and do some of the things we'd delegated to Asher.

The dynamic and innovative way. Asher was always onto something new, with enthusiasm. That's his legacy, which we must honor by doing it, too.