Day Forty

This week went fast. I thought again that this was Friday. A week ago I was still packing and on summarizing the first month I stated a month-long writing did not improve my writing skills. Just yesterday I talked about feeling more comfortable writing. The time has started distorting again. I don't like feeling - oh what happened, cannot believe that it is today already! This is a continuing theme in my life. Soon I would say, oh I cannot believe I am 80 years old! It's one of the reasons why I wanted to keep a journal so I am there to recognize the moment and remember the moment.  I have limited memories from my high school years. I asked my mother what I was up to those days and she replied I was sleeping. Whether she meant it literally or figuratively I'm not sure, but I suppose both. 

I used to be really bad with time. I was always late for classes and was running through train stations chasing closing doors. My sister declared she would never go out with me again after the second time she spent 40 minutes waiting for me at a station. I was always late coming home from school ( I had a reason: I was more interested in finding new routes than coming home on time). I got much better and started paying attentions to time as I got older, realizing being late is a way to loose time. Now my watch is set five minutes ahead. I need this extra 30 degrees on the face of the clock to match my somehow distorted perception of time. So now I'm thinking may be I can also modify the calendar to match my perception of days and weeks. I have been using the same calendar system throughout my life like the rest of the world where days are organized in 7 columns. Maybe I can modify the visual cue to match my idea of a week period? 

Day Thirty-Nine

A good thing about writing everyday is that it has become less precious. It takes away the pressure of making sure the piece coming out is good so I won't disappoint myself. It's like a white piece of paper. I was thinking about making a large painting today and why I am not doing it. The thought of making sure the first piece being good stops me from doing it because If I don't do it, I would not know that the result will disappoint me so by postponing doing it I can let it be a fantasy and a dream that can stay inside my vague imagination. I feel a little bit freer on writing after almost 40 days:  I think one way is to do a lot until it stops being scary to do.

Day Thirty-Eight

I had a good work day today. I finished multiple tasks that I wanted to finish by 6pm. I took a lunch break outside the studio, took a walk, played the guitar, had 30 minutes of future project thinking time, went to the pool, trimmed, threw, glazed and started the kiln -  It was an active day and I did not feel exhausted. There is one thing I did differently today - I turned off all notifications that would come up on my phone and the laptop and didn't check Facebook or Instagram until I finished working, not even once. It was quiet, and I was able to focus. Too much chattering going on in addition to my own noise inside me. 

Day Thirty-Seven

I threw more succulent pots. I thought I made at least 40 but actually I made only 34. I have 14 more to make. I have the clay and the throwing tools ready by the wheel for tomorrow morning. This is becoming not fun. Repetitive work is tough. I started loosing focus and questioning if this was a meaningful work or not. This thought was discouraging so I needed to change my mind: I might as well make them so well that the hotel guests would steal them from the bathroom. One day months or years from now I might meet one of these guests in their hometown somewhere outside of NYC and find my succulent pots in their home. That would be really fun. 

Day Thirty-Six

The pallet of cartons with highlighter-yellow "fragile, do not drop" labels was picked up. Now the area the pallet used to sit for the past few days looks empty. I hope it gets there safely. I hope I gave them all required paperwork. When I discovered the postal service the first time when I was four or five I was amazed by the system where you give someone you have never met and don't know anything about an item to be delivered to another person. I was also so skeptical that I needed to test it by sending a postcard addressed to where I lived, to my mother. I do not remember if it was the next day or a few days later but surely the postcard written by me arrived to my parents' mail box. Then I felt guilty for both doubting the postal person and wasting the potage money and ended up having trouble sleeping for the next few days. 

Once I sent a box of my personal belongings from Philadelphia to my parents' home in Japan, where I was going back to. It was the end of my two-and-a-half months stay and moving away from my closest friends made me too sad for doing something so practical like packing.  I did not have much positive thoughts in my future life in Japan and I just emotionally and carelessly shoved things in to a box the night before I left to the airport. It was an inappropriate large box of approximately 30" cube, with no packaging materials so the contents moved around. A few months later a sad looking cardboard object arrived with straps that someone must have applied, somehow holding jammed corners and broken folds together. To my much amazement It arrived across the Pacific Ocean without any damage to the contents..

A few years ago I traveled to Galapagos Islands. On one of the islands was a hundreds years old whaler's "post office" now a popular place for a tourist to visit.  It was started back in the day where whalers would leave letters to their friends and families back home and the next travelers would look through and deliver letters addressed to near their next destination. It is  a postal system run by strangers. Like other tourists I put a few postcards in the mail box, one of. which was address to my parents in Japan. A few weeks later my mother told  me on the phone that she had a strange unexpected visitor; a tall blonde woman showed up at her door and told her "tegami motte kita" (I brought a letter). My parents live in a small beach/fishing town 60 km south of Tokyo. I didn't even imagine that my postcard would get there. 

I hope the shipment gets to the destination intact without getting lost in the sea called a warehouse. 

Day Thirty-Five

I trimmed the succulent pots I threw yesterday in the morning and took the afternoon off for the first time this year to attend my friend's housewarming party. I just realized that it has been already a year since I opened the studio, which I filled with lots of pots and boxes. I still have some work left to do to it.  I would love to keep things more organized in the way that there is a sense of openness. I do not believe that messy environments encourage creative activities and idea generation. When I work I prefer a quiet environment, not in terms of sound per se but I believe stuff has energy and I feel like it talks and when there is too much around me it feels noisy. Tomorrow the pickup will come. This is a good time to change up the way I work and start putting in time to think about the future projects/ideas aside from ongoing immidiate projects.   

Day Thirty-Four

The packing is done. Now to  the succulent pots project. A pile of boxes supposed to be picked up is still there by the door like a giant wrapped pack of meat. Throwing after a few full days of packing feels fresh. It's good to feel wet clay again but this repetitive throwing tests my patience and an ability to focus. I took on this job because it was not only a great project to be part in but also an interesting challenge to make so many pots but since now I know I can do it and I am able to visualize how it will be done I want something new, the next. I have not put any more thoughts to other project ideas I had in mind  - what happened to the cookbook project and the nightmare series? I do not like saying that I am busy - but I have been occupied and did not put time to think of other things. Now it is a good time to go back and brain storm again. I can't find the notebook that I kept future project ideas on. I really hope I did not accidentally packed in that giant meat pack.