A studio day that opened an old door

Yesterday, a lovely young couple came to my studio to try pottery for the first time. I know my story has just started, but I will make a little detour from the subject for a moment. My East European mentality still suffers through small talk. After years of living in Canada I can support a conversation about hockey and weather, but it never comes easily. My guests seemed to share the same sentiment because they went straight in.

They asked where I was from, what Latvia is, and how it felt to grow up there. One thing led to another, and soon we were talking about the Soviet Union and the fact that Latvia was part of it when I was little. To make things even more unusual, they actually knew their history. When they asked what year I was born and I said 1977, their faces froze in shock. They told me I looked so young and they would have never guessed. It was very sweet. We ended up chatting about the Berlin Wall, which I saw in 1988 or 1989, and agreed that life is full of incredible turns.

After a couple of hours of learning wheel throwing and making some pretty awesome dishes, I waved them goodbye and was left with a warm mix of feelings, a bit of nostalgia, gratitude, and an acute awareness of how long and interesting my journey has been so far. The world around me has changed almost beyond recognition, yet somehow, here I am, still creating, still curious, still covered in clay, and so lucky to meet wonderful people day after day.