Hello it’s Me

I never know what I’m in for when I call my Asheville potter son Josh on the phone. Last year when I called expecting him to be home some of my calls were routed to Canada, New York, Arizona, and South Carolina. Once when he answered his phone he told me he was in New Jersey. “What?” I said incredulously.

He usually explains that he’s at a ceramics or a wood firing convention, building a kiln somewhere, assistant teaching, presenting a slide show or otherwise on an adventure.

So we talk for a while, me in Virginia and him in New Jersey, and then he says: “Gotta go now, mom. My bus stop is coming up.”

“What? Now you’re on a bus?”

Another time this past year when I called him, his answering machine picked up and reported that his cell phone had fallen in the toilet and that he wouldn’t be returning calls until he got a new one. Then there was the call about his car being stolen while he was at a restaurant eating breakfast.

A few days ago I called him and got this report: “I’m living out of 5 boxes on Annabelle and Rachel’s porch.”

I knew he was moving out of the loft warehouse apartment where he was living in the back of his Clay Space Studio Co-op, and that he was renovating an Air Stream trailer to live in while he built a kiln, pottery studio, and house on his recently purchased property.

“It’s good practice for living in the trailer,” he assured me before adding, “I’m getting ready to go to Louisville, Kentucky now …”

Photo: The above photo is a self portrait painting Josh did, which includes a time-line of photographs from various stages in his life. The last time I was visiting him, it was hanging in the doorway of his warehouse loft apartment. I said, “But Josh the 3rd one from the end isn’t even you.” He laughed and told me who it was but I can’t remember now. This post was originally posted on looseleafnotes.com on January 31, 2007.