Centering is the first argument of the day. Clay slaps the wheelhead at seven, and for the next two hours the only conversation is between palms and slurry, between the hum of the motor and the soft resistance of a wall rising. Speed, Mara Okafor argues, is not the enemy of attention. A cylinder thrown in ninety seconds still asks for ninety seconds of your whole mind, she says. The wheel does not permit you to be anywhere else. Her method is a drill: ten cylinders before breakfast, each one cut open and examined like a confession. The walls are measured, the floors weighed, the rims pinched into honesty. The pieces that survive the morning become the day's pots. The rest go back to the bag, unbothered, patient — clay's great gift is that it will always forgive you and ask to be centered again.