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On your plate
Love, work, rates
Mould your way
-安天美
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The sun streamed through wooden panels as we gathered at the pottery studio today, celebrating International Women's Day with the question that opened our hearts: "What's on your plate?" We formed a circle. We spoke of work and expectations, words tumbling out with excitement and subtle worry. We spoke about shared dreams, creating art and community, eyes bright with determination.
The plates we carry aren't merely vessels for food; they bear the weight of our lives. For women across generations, these plates often overflow with both visible and invisible labour. We feed others before ourselves. We soothe wounds not our own. We plan and remember and organise the emotional landscapes of our communities. Yet within these shared experiences bloom our individual stories, each unique as a fingerprint pressed into soft clay.
"Love, work, rates" names the essential elements that fill our days. Love flows through relationships with family, friends, lovers, and crucially, with ourselves. Work encompasses both what earns our bread and what gives our days purpose. Rates reminds us of life's practical realities, the bills waiting to be paid, the hours passing too quickly, the resources we must carefully allocate.
For young women especially, these ingredients often come with complications unnamed in textbooks. Love arrives tangled with expectations about who we should be for others. Work presents uneven ground where the path forward isn't always clearly marked. Rates includes confronting systems not designed with us in mind, where our labour may be valued less, where our time may be considered more available for others' needs.
Magic bloomed when conversation transformed into creation. Each person received identical clay; same weight, same colour, same potential. The room quieted as hands began their work. A girl with braids wrapped around her head pressed her thumbs deep into the center, creating space where there was once only solid mass. Another pulled her clay upward, building delicate walls that curved decorated with small clay beads. Another flattened her portion against the table, drawing patterns with her wooden tool across the surface.
This creative act revealed the essence of "mould your way." The clay remembers everything from gentle touches to decisive cuts and hesitant pauses. It doesn't categorise our choices as correct or incorrect. It simply responds, becoming a mirror that reflects our decisions back to us in physical form.
For young women charting their paths in a world of conflicting messages, this clay becomes more than metaphor. Society may hand you particular expectations, like identical slabs distributed around a table. But the pressure of your fingers, the vision in your mind, the courage in your heart will transform that raw material into something uniquely yours. Your hands hold power that no outside force can diminish.
The workshop's most profound moment arrived when we displayed our creations side by side. Though we began with identical material, the resulting forms spoke of infinite possibility. A rounded bowl sat beside an angular sculpture. A practical plate contrasted with an abstract form that defied any categorisation. A lovely, tear drop shaped bowl stood next to a wide, smooth dish designed to hold many things.
"I made this to hold chips," said a girl with shy eyes and determined voice, presenting her creation with hands still dusted with clay.
Each creation revealed not just artistic choice but life philosophy. There is no single correct way to shape your journey. Your approach to love, to work, to managing resources can reflect your unique vision. The important question becomes not "Am I doing this right?" but "Does this feel authentic to who I am and who I wish to become?"
As afternoon shadows lengthened, our workshop ended, though many pieces remained unfinished. Some would enter kilns later this week, clay transforming through fire into something permanent. Others would receive glazes, adding colour and protection. Some might crack during firing, requiring kintsugi-like repair that makes the breaks part of their beauty. Each piece would continue evolving beyond our single afternoon together.
This mirrors how our lives unfold across time. The choices you make at sixteen create a foundation, but they don't permanently determine your shape. You'll continue adding layers, smoothing rough edges, sometimes breaking and rebuilding. The plate you balance today will look different when you're twenty-five, forty, seventy and each version remains authentically yours.
On this Women's Day, such understanding carries special power. Throughout history, women have shaped new possibilities from limited resources. From grandmothers who couldn't read but ensured their granddaughters attended university, to young activists transforming social media into platforms for change, we've always found ways to mould new paths. Though struggles remain and barriers still stand, each generation adds something vital to this ongoing creation. Your hands join this lineage, continuing work both ancient and urgently new.
When we consider both your plate (what fills your days) and your clay (how you shape your life), something profound emerges: despite similar constraints and ingredients, your expression remains uniquely yours. No one else possesses exactly your combination of strengths, challenges, dreams, and circumstances.
This uniqueness isn't merely interesting, it's necessary. The world needs your particular perspective, your specific approach to problems, your distinct way of creating beauty and meaning. When you honour your authentic path rather than merely following prescribed routes, you offer something irreplaceable. Our communities grow stronger through the variety of our creations.
For young women navigating contradictory messages about who they should be, this understanding offers both liberation and responsibility. Freedom to define success according to your own values. Responsibility to use your distinctive voice and vision. The world has enough copies; what it lacks is your original contribution.
Moulding your way isn't a destination but a lifelong dance. Some days the clay feels responsive, possibilities flowing through your fingers. Other days the material seems stubborn, resisting your touch. Both experiences belong to the creator's journey.
What matters is continuing to show up at the table, hands open, heart engaged, vision clear even when the path isn't. Learning when to press firmly and when to touch gently. When to follow traditional forms and when to break them. When to work in solitude and when to create alongside others.
As we left the studio, clay dust clinging to our skin like memories, we carried with us more than physical creations. We departed with renewed understanding of our power to shape our days with intention and courage. To notice what fills our plates without being defined by these contents. To honour the essential ingredients of love, work, and practical realities while arranging them in patterns true to ourselves.
You are both the artist and the clay, both the server and what fills the plate. This dual power has always belonged to you. Use it wisely. Use it boldly. Use it in ways that will make the girl you once were proud and the woman you're becoming unstoppable.
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