Inevitable Mistakes

The first forms collapsed under their own flaws.

I watched pieces crack in the kiln, glazes peel away, textures vanish in the fire.
It was disappointing, and yet fascinating.

I began to understand that every failure translated a new word from the language of forms.
Sometimes, the piece said nothing. Other times, it whispered clearly what I had done wrong.

I learned to listen to the cracks, to read the marks of firing as a map of the process.
They were not losses — they were lessons.
Each broken edge showed me how close I was to what I was seeking.

And if, at first, ruin seemed like the end of the road, I came to realize it was only a crossroads.
Falling was not an ending, but a rising in another direction.

In time, the table covered with fragments no longer spoke to me of failure, but of progress.
That is how I began to see in every shard the beginning of a new piece.