This piece was created to honor my childhood spent with my grandmother.

In the garage with my grandmother, the summer humidity hangs thick, almost fog-like, in the air. I watch the dusty garage fill with the smell of clay and the hum of the cracked pottery wheel as she effortlessly materializes a pot. In my own attempt shortly after, the clay folds in on itself, drowning in the muddy water and crumpled layers of what can only be described as a mess. This afternoon spent in our garage was the first of many pottery lessons, something my grandmother had been talking about for years and years before. 

       I was born sixty years after my grandmother. We share the golden pig as our zodiac sign, the special thread between us she never fails to mention. I spent much of my childhood reading past my bedtime, thanks to the light thrown up on my walls through the star shaped cutouts in the pig shaped night-light she made me. Besides attempting pottery in the garage, we would often spend the endless summer days in the library. Racing through the unrelenting July sun to reach the air conditioned sanctuary of the Queens Public Library, my grandmother encouraged me to read and keep reading. We would load her grocery cart with books, and drag them home, rattling and creaking over the uneven sidewalk the entire way back. 

       Long after the first time my grandmother attempted to teach me how to make a bowl, I was the one showing her how to do math problems and editing her emails. She often thanked me with the title of 선생님 (seonsaengnim), which is teacher in Korean. I remember feeling a certain unease at this, the idea that I was now the one who could teach, that I couldn’t just rely on her, that I was getting older. I was afraid to grow up, to lose the childhood feeling of eternal summer breezes, soundtracked by the chirp of crickets and warped singing into the fan. I didn’t want her to get older either, to be faced with the idea that one day she wouldn’t be the one caring for me. I was grateful for how things felt easy, the way life was an endless stream of cut fruit and dreamlike sunsets. I hated feeling like the one in charge, the one who talked to cashiers and checked the map before we left the house. I didn’t want to think about real things, and I resented how it felt like we had switched. 

       Now, as I actually have gotten older, my family doesn’t rely on my grandmother so heavily. Even though I don’t see her so often, she is with me every single day. I eat the food she brings over to our house, the seemingly never ending supply of glowing red pomegranates all because I said they were my favorite that one time. I wear the necklace with her birthstone every day, and turn on that pig light every so often. More importantly, I try to create. This is what she taught me, and what holds us together no matter what, the link through the universe: our sameness that began with the golden pig. 

       Throughout my childhood, my grandmother fed me with creativity: all those trips to the library, where only I was reading; the times she insisted we visit the museums in the city, even when I was the one navigating the subway for the both of us. Even as I get older, and become more and more of the teacher, I remember her creation. The watercolored cards, with scrawled Korean I am barely literate enough to understand, the ceramic strawberries and slices of cake gifted on birthdays, all remind me that appreciation, and joy, for life aren’t lost through age. Getting older doesn’t mean you have to remain only the teacher, or be the one who knows all the time. I can hold onto a certain whimsy for everything through making something. 

Process

My mentor, Cindy, and I talked through a bunch of different ideas, and I was originally going to write about my experience in Korea and its significance to me. I eventually realized a lot of what I really wanted to talk about was my grandmother, and my appreciation for all she has done. With Cindy, I developed an essay based around my childhood memories (and extreme summer nostalgia) and my grandmother’s importance.