Day 273 of Winter…yet hope springs eternal!

Yes, let it be Spring!  While yesterday was officially the first day of Spring, I always thought of March 21^st as that – something about odd numbers was appealing, long before I (vaguely) knew of the philosophies of odd numbers.  “What could be the reason for liking numbers known as “odd,” which means eccentric, a crackpot, and a bizarre person? A preference for odd numbers is in itself, strange.”¹ Yes, that rather sums it up. 
But back to Spring, and all the promise it holds of regrowth and rejuvenation.  As I look forward – or should I say, (try to) focus on – upping my clay game this year, I have found myself held back.  Is it the still too-frequent days of no sunshine, is it the madness that this world has become and is sometimes impossible to bear just as outsider, is it my own fear of too many things? Like fear of failure, fear of being found out, fear of not being good enough…or perhaps it’s fear of success.  Being good, at whatever one does, is not the same as being good enough and vice versa.  Being good enough in comparison to others, is a cruel game to play on oneself...and it can take a lifetime to figure that out but eventually you realise that you needn’t play that game.  You go forth, be eccentric, do what makes you feel alive, and you will have been good at it.   

I wasn’t good at it when I made this first teapot donkey’s years ago.  I didn’t immediately think, “Oh, this is brilliant; my life is meant to be in clay, ergo I must pursue it.”  I mean, look at this thing!  But, hope springs eternal, and every so often I look at this teapot and remember why I keep it – because it planted a seed that’s just taken a lot of Springs to grow.

¹[Nishiyama Y. (2004). Su no Bunkashi [The Cultural History of Numbers], Keizaishi Kenkyu [Studies in Economic History], 8(2004), 146-174.]