6.30.25 here, there, and everywhere
on canon events and attempting to have a casual relationship with music
here
one of the perks of working at a rich private school is getting to take an 8 week faculty/staff pottery class taught by 70-year-old, internationally renowned potter steven branfman, who also happens to be your colleague. i’ve glamorized the idea of pottery making for quite some time, as evidenced by my tiktok feed and multiple pinterest boards. and you know what? this coincides nicely with my matcha aspiration. perhaps i’ll throw a bowl i could use for that.
what i now know, three weeks in, is that pottery is deceivingly difficult. of course, steve makes it look easy, throwing three flawless vessels off the mound while rattling off potter’s proverbs about tree roots and being one with the clay. i don’t really have follow-up questions because i’m busy mimicking his hand positions, and how hard can it be? the lump spins in a circle, and if i hold my hands in one position for long enough, won’t it become what i want it to?
wrong. i often forget how deceptive the appearance of effortlessness is. it’s been a while since a regular task has felt effortful, and not at all because i have a knack for everything i touch. rather, i tend to quit things that don’t come naturally; i take it as a sign from the universe that i’m not cut out for them. but alas, the spring term has refused to make quitting an option for me: here i am taking a beginner’s pottery class, filming and editing a shitty documentary for a grad school project, and coaching softball—a sport i haven’t so much as watched in my twenty-some-odd years of being.
and by the time thursdays roll around and i’m trudging home after another grueling day of getting called “weird” by my students and yelling “plays to first” because that’s about all i know how to do, i’m not thinking about the eclectic bowls and vases that may one day line my shelf but rather about the aching in my forearms and palms—aching that has yet to bear any ceramic fruit. nevertheless, i plop my body in front of the wheel and hope that the walls don’t cave in on my almost-cup for the dozenth time.
during the third week, i have a breakthrough. the aching subsides, my hands feel more sure of themselves, and i get whatever this is off the wheel.
woah! there is value in being tenacious! who cares if it doesn’t come naturally! and who cares if it is small and simple! by god i will make my own matcha bowl one day. but i am perfectly happy with this tiny thing for the time being.
there
many things have happened this year—beginnings, endings, and a shit ton of beatles. beatles for breakfast, beatles for lunch, beatles on the biweeky drive to hmart, beatles to sedate my students after recess.
the danger, i’m realizing, of having a consistent soundtrack is that one begins to lead a cinematic life. first you notice that the breeze is blowing in your hair and sweeping your skirt like you’re a studio ghibli character standing atop a grassy hill as blackbirds chirp softly in your ears. then you fill your lungs with (and take thoughtful account of) the petrichor (thanks andrew) that pervades the early spring atmosphere because you know what? it has been a long, cold, lonely winter. next thing you know, you’re expecting things—life things—to conclude with a sense of poetic justice. but they don’t because your life is not a great american tale; it is simply equal parts entropy and consequence. and sometimes, things happen just because they do.
what kind of freak coincidence is it, then, that a man you kissed is named after a beatle? that must mean something, right? and what of the circumstances, the journey there? narratively, too compelling a story to let be.
but as it turns out, sometimes you need to kiss someone in a hotel hallway, haul your ass across state lines on valentine’s day, be reminded of why you had reservations about them when you first met, and then free yourself from the clutches of situationshiphood to realize that sometimes, things just happen. a chemical reaction, a natural byproduct of life being lived.
everywhere
word on the street is that paul mccartney wrote “here, there, and everywhere” when he was my age. he also wrote it about jane asher, whom he eventually cheated on and separated from. how weird it must have been, for jane asher, to have (what i consider) one of the greatest love songs of all time written about you by a man who would later betray you. does paul’s unfaithfulness render this song null and void? was it all a lie?
perhaps to a previous version of me. perhaps to a future version of me, too. but for the time being, i don’t think so. everywhere (and here and there, for that matter) is a place word and therefore makes no promise of time or longevity, and i’d be hard pressed to find someone who understood the concept of love in its fullness at 23. even paul mccartney. and certainly not me.
