The thing you must remember

the thing you must remember is how, as a child, you worked hours in the art room, the teacher's hand over yours, molding the little clay dog.

You must remember how nothing mattered but the imagined dog's fur, the shape of his ears and his paws. The gray clay felt dangerous, your small hands were pressing what you couldn't say with your limited words. When the dog's back stiffened, then cracked into white shards in the kiln, you learned how the beautiful suffers from too much attention, how clumsy a single vision can grow, and fragile with trying too hard.

The thing you must remember is the art teacher's capable hands: large, rough and grainy, over yours, holding on.

-maggie anderson