Mud Babies

(Dedicated to my niece, Jennifer,
who spent many summer weekends
watching me throw pots on my back porch
and showing interest in my craft.)
 

Aunt Lucy was a potter.  She was always making pots
from hunks of clay she dug around her home.
I watched her make her miracles.
She’d sit and spin that mud –
first a cylinder would form, then
a belly, neck, and collar would appear.
Lucy’s hands and her wheel always worked
as a team to sketch a spiral, fluid-feeling form.
 I never guessed her difficulty dealing with the limits
of a homespun clay  –  never knew whether it was Lucy’s
predetermined WILL that brought a pretty fluted vase forth
from a shapeless muddy base,  or if each piece appeared
from some desire of its own.  She wouldn’t tell, and
I still wonder, “Did she know?”

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 We never had a clue what might turn up in our Christmas stockings,
either, with a note in Lucy’s wildly flourished hand, which read:
“When you get to know this mug (or bowl), I hope you’ll like it
just as well as I do . . .  but if not, please feel free to bring
my Mudbaby home, and choose another you might
 like to
have and hold.”

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 Gossips in the family thought Aunt Lucy was a showoff,
or a self-promoting bitty who didn’t give quite fully –
but I knew her as a mentor, a tender, doting
Mother, who loved her family fully
AND her Mudbaby offspring, and
wanted both to share a cozy home. 
Lucy told me “Potting is as basic as the sea . . .
each wave hits the shore a little differently.”  She
thought an oversized mug which wasn’t popped from a mold
and duplicated a hundred-thousand fold, captured something of the spirit
of Creation.   Offered food for the Soul’s contemplation.   Once when I complained
her  “matched sets”  weren’t a perfect match, she quipped:  “There’s no two
leaves alike on any tree. If that’s good enough for God, it’s good for me!”
 I think  Lucy felt a call to  add some texture to our lives.
She hoped her offerings,   rightly placed,   might
draw us back to natural ways; that evidence
of human hands could radiate a ray of
comfort when we felt ourselves
displaced, and keep us
thoughtfully
aware
of our uniqueness.

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And I do swear I feel “acceptance” pulsing through her wares, as
though the simple melodies I heard her humming when she glazed,
tended kilns or cleaned up spills, were embedded deeply there.
Despite her love for design and great attention to detail, Lucy’s
comfort with the
accidental warp, multi-textured forms, undulating rims, even little cracks
 and dings, somehow caress my daunted spirits with her care.
 But then, I saw her put it there.