I spent an afternoon inside a pottery studio, Studio18, on Waiheke Island, the kind of place where nothing is finished in a hurry, where tools hang where they’re needed, clay waits and light comes and goes without asking permission.

The studio belongs to our mate Tim. He’s sailed the Mediterranean in recent years, living aboard and learning, over time, how much patience weather demands. Now he works with clay and what surprised me wasn’t the shift, but how familiar it all felt. I saw the same attention, the same respect for sequence and the same understanding that force rarely improves things. I saw how skills don’t vanish when a life changes shape…. they find a new way to be useful.

Outside the studio, Waiheke moves at its own pace yet inside, time thickens and I feel an invitation hiding in the clay. To notice what in our own lives is still becoming, to recognise the knowledge we’ve carried further than we realised annnnnnnnnnd ahhhhh to let time do some of the work, instead of arguing with it.

Thanks for drifting with me, Lyss xx

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