When Everything Needs Attention.

I got home from the factory shift at 7 PM and stood in the driveway looking at the studio. The kiln is out back waiting for bricks to stack themselves. The raised bed boxes need more soil. The propane tanks are filled but the solar panels aren’t up yet. Inside the studio there’s reclaim clay to process and pots to throw and glaze tests to run and the whole spring cleaning project I started and didn’t finish.

Everything needs attention. Nothing is done. I had maybe four hours before I needed to sleep for the next shift. What gets today?

This is the question I ask more than I want to admit. Not “what should I work on” but “what gets the limited time and energy I have left after the factory takes its share.” Some days the answer is nothing. Some days I walk past all of it, go inside, and sleep. Those are the nothing days I wrote about before. They’re part of the process even when they feel like failure.

Today I chose the reclaim clay. Not because it was the most important thing. The kiln matters more. The solar project matters more for the long term plan. But the reclaim clay was something I could actually finish in the time I had. Process one bucket, wedge it up, bag it, put it on the shelf. Done. That’s progress I can see.

Steven Pressfield talks about Resistance loving the big overwhelming projects because they paralyze you. The kiln sitting there for three years is Resistance winning. But processing one bucket of clay is Resistance losing. It’s small. It’s manageable. It’s choosing to do something instead of standing in the driveway doing the math on everything I’m not doing.

I’ve been thinking about what Seth Godin says about the practice. You don’t wait for the perfect day when you have eight hours and full energy and no other obligations. You work with what you have. Today I had four hours and factory-shift tired. That’s enough for one bucket of clay. Tomorrow I might have two hours and nothing-left tired. That might be enough for ten bricks on the kiln. The practice is showing up with whatever you have and using it.

My wife asks me sometimes why I don’t just hire someone to finish the kiln. Or buy new clay instead of reclaiming. Or skip the garden and just buy vegetables. The answer is complicated. Part of it is money. Part of it is wanting to know I can do these things myself. Part of it is the artist’s journey requiring you to face the challenges instead of paying someone else to face them for you.

But the real answer is simpler. This is the work. Not just making pots. Building the infrastructure that makes making pots possible. Growing food that fuels the person who makes the pots. Processing clay that becomes the material. Stacking bricks that become the kiln. It’s all the work. Thinking pottery is just throwing and glazing is like thinking farming is just harvesting. The harvest is the end. The work is everything that makes harvest possible.

I processed the bucket of clay. It’s good clay. My old favorite that got discontinued eight years ago. I have maybe six more buckets of it in reclaim form. That might be enough clay for the whole year if I’m careful. That’s self-reliance. That’s using what I have instead of waiting for conditions to be perfect.

The kiln is still sitting there. The solar panels are still a plan. The garden boxes are still empty. But there’s one more bag of wedged clay on the shelf that wasn’t there this morning. That’s what got today. Tomorrow something else will get its turn. Eventually all of it gets done or none of it matters anyway.

Viktor Frankl said if you have a strong enough why you can bear any how. My why is seven years until retirement and pottery needs to be sustainable by then. The how is twelve-hour factory shifts and stolen hours and choosing what gets today from a list of things that all matter. It’s not elegant. It’s not efficient. But it’s the work.

If I were living yesterday a second time: Tomorrow I’ll remember that choosing what gets today is better than letting Resistance choose nothing.

Things I am grateful for: The four hours between factory shift and sleep. 

Days remaining if I live to 86: 12,688

What gets today? Not what should get today or what you wish could get today. What actually gets the limited time and energy you have right now?

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