Why I Don’t Call My Child a Miracle
This is the problem with the vocabulary of miracles when it comes to childbearing: It ends up equating failure of conception or birth with a divine curse.
if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen
The Sleeping BeautyIn times past there lived a King and Queen, who said to each other every day of their lives, “Would that we had a child!” and yet they had noneThumbelinaThere once was a woman who wanted so very much to have a tiny little child, but she did not know where to find one. So she went to an old witch, and she said: “I have set my heart upon having a tiny little child. Please, could you tell me where I can find one?”
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At the first class, the teacher showed our small group how to pinch off some clay and knead it until it was pliable. Once it was ready for the wheel, it was time to center. You take your lump of clay and smack it down in the middle of the wheel. You then cup it between your wet hands and as the wheel spins you form the lump into a dome. If you don’t center the clay properly, it will show in your finished project. Your pots will be off-kilter; they will warp, or worse, collapse into a wet pile of clay so that you'll be forced to start over again from scratch. Our teacher demonstrated a few times and then made us try.
I’d forgotten that the simplest things are often the hardest to make.
This essay originally appeared in
Teri Vlassopoulos is the author of the novel, Escape Plans (Invisible Publishing) and a collection of short stories, Bats or Swallows (Invisible Publishing) . Her non-fiction has appeared in Catapult, The Toast, The Rumpus, The Millions and Bookslut. She lives in Toronto.
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