I Throw Pottery. Would I Throw My Career, Too?

After the chaos of the last government shutdown—and a hard year of loss and change—federal workers like me face a tough decision.

Madison Chapman with some of her pottery creations

It’s hot today, I say to the dust motes. They hover in a listless sunbeam cracking through the high windows of my community pottery studio—suspended, caught in a liminal place. They’re airborne now, but meant to be part of something larger, more solid.

“It’s Monday, October 6th,” NPR broadcasts live from their Washington, D.C. studio, just a mile or two down the road. Hamas, apparently, will accept a peace deal with Israel. Strange to hear that here first, with clay already making a sludgy paste on my fingertips. I should have learned that at work, had I not been furloughed in the government shutdown. I would normally have dug into the news more closely, to draft remarks or perhaps a report. But I’m here instead.

I slash into the still-damp lamp base I’m working on, my carving knife coaxing wilting dogwoods and curling leaves from the raw hunk of mud. A woman works next to me on a fresh batch of mugs. She’s furloughed, too, and has heard through the grapevine it could be two to six weeks until we return to office.

Unseasonable, this heat—I scratch at a fresh welt, though the mosquitoes should be sleeping now. The trees in Rock Creek Park should be turning golden and russet, too, but they’re holding out for change. For a cooldown, for the temperature to lower a bit before they decide what to do.

The stubborn green canopy camouflages National Guard troops, still here in the city. Still lugging huge rifles around, shadowed by chunky government buildings. They stroll, fatigued in garb and spirit, Starbucks in hand. They hang around packed oyster bars where loud Georgetown students, desperate for fall, down expensive Pinot and sweat through cropped sweaters and knee-high boots. They meander past young couples laden with farmer’s market totes that say What’s More Punk than the Public Library, bouncy with bright emerald kale. Outside pre-season hockey games they laugh and lurk, these tight blocks of close-shaven young men, while Capitals fans bleed red, white, and blue in a vital artery from the metro to the stadium.

What are you working on? the woman asks. The studio has been empty this morning save us two. What do I usually do? I’m a civil servant. Am I making pottery a full-time job? No. Am I still employed? Yes, I reply. About eighty percent of my colleagues were fired this year, I tell her. I’ve stumbled into them around town, heard they now work at supermarkets and bookstores. It’s a company town, people say, and the company has shuttered. It’s a loss for America, she says. I nod.

It was my dream job, to serve. I love my country, even when it’s wincing in pain. But I’m not sure how much more I can tolerate.

I may leave, I say, testing the idea, feeling it hard and heavy on my tongue. It tastes bitter. How could I, when so many were let go and I remain? There was a time it was inconceivable, when the mission was all that mattered. But torn between selfishness and sacrifice, stability and uncertainty, I falter.

Am I resilient enough to stay?

A bead of moisture crawls down my torso, drawing my attention to my clenched stomach. Past my lunchtime. The studio is busy now. The woman and I scoot over on our workbench to make room for the newcomers. I’ve heard about three-quarters of my fellow students also work for the federal government, and the studio has extended open hours to accommodate us all. Maybe we bureaucrats are just eager to create, to mold and shape, whether from policy or clay.

I want to stay. If I do go, one day I’d like to return, rebuild. I’m still in my early thirties and I care. I have time to re-invent myself. But I wonder about those more seasoned than I, who have already given so much time.

Some of these thoughts have spilled into the air between my neighbor and I as we continue to chat away. I don’t know why they would return, I say. After long careers in government, they were just tossed away.

She speaks to the workbench without hesitation. Because they’re patriots.

Soon, it will be the top of the hour. I doubt there will be a shutdown update, but I’m on high alert so turn the radio back on. Every minute or two, the door cracks open and a new face appears, bathed in blistering light from the outside.

They sit down to throw, joining us, hypnotized into something like acceptance by the dozen spinning pottery wheels, elbow-deep in mud. Too many of us now, for noon on a weekday.

It’s hot, they say.

We’re all charred inside, burning out.

Madison Chapman is a writer and proud federal worker living in Washington D.C. You can find her work in The New York Times, HuffPost, The Washington Post, TIME, Outside, and elsewhere.