Between Works

Unfortunately I grew up in a household where the word sorry was used to keep equilibrium or some kind of balanced order within the house. Not that if anyone is hurt we apologize to make them feel better, but in the sense that if an adult touches me or makes a comment that makes me cry, I have to apologize for my reaction that caused them to feel guilty. 

The adults in my family expect a crying child to apologize for making them feel uncomfortable for disturbing the child’s boundaries. Children are deemed as selfish and disrespectful if they don’t apologize or, at the least, stop crying. How am I supposed to understand how to protect my body and mind as an adult if this is what my childhood consisted of? Maybe that confusion around guilt and permission is part of why I struggled for so long to understand what bodily autonomy meant — even when harm came from another Vietnamese child around my age. 

Lately, I’ve been noticing how the word sorry moves through my hands as I work with clay — in the way I handle collapse, smooth over mistakes, hold onto teacups that have been over-trimmed. When does care become control? When does honoring the clay body turn into forcing it to stay in form?