the looking glass

I have been reminded that, despite my perception to the contrary, my words do not go unheeded here. And while posting to a blog sometimes feels like dropping a frog into a bucket of frogs, it is important to know that each and every frog is very very different. And who knows, perhaps that frog will find another frog who might appeal and then nature will take its course in the way of bees and birds with the result being a whole new batch of tadpoles...

My brain has been consumed with a recent project called Box Theatre (check out my friends at Theatre Replacement for the deets). My box is titled Box Spring and tells the fable of a girl who runs and runs out of fear because she doesn't know any better than to believe what she is told - even when what she's told runs contrary to her own lived experience. (I guess in that way it's about trusting oneself, blah blah blah...) But the object of her fear - the one by whom she feels pursued - has neither taken nor threatened to take anything from her. Instead he has given her the most precious thing one can give another: love, pure and simple. And the time taken from his own life in pursuit of her.

Our precious heart is akin to a delicate glass sculpture. Some of us hold it dearly to our hearts, never trusting another with it's care. Others of us smash it ourselves, convinced that somehow witnessing the destruction will hurt less if we enact it ourselves. But there are some of use who hold our tender sculptures in the palms of our hands, hoping to hand them to another who can be trusted with their care. Because glass needs to be polished, to be dusted carefully and protected. And finally, to be admired. Anyone who manages to risk breaking something so precious should be celebrated themselves in a commemorative statue made of something more enduring and long-lasting like bronze or granite or steel.

But what is often overlooked when we think of glass is its liquid nature. Glass, true glass being made of silicon dioxide, is never ever truly solid. We see the charming results in old houses with old windows whose outlook on the world is distorted by the varying thickness of the glass. This variety is due to the glass sliding - dripping - down, following the relentless directions of gravity, albeit in slow motion. A shattered glass is merely one that has been forced to move more quickly than is in its nature.

In fact, my grade ten chemistry teacher told me that glass has a memory. It remembers being granular sand; free to sweep, drift and collect. A sudden shock to a pane of glass is like the sudden recollection of a memory - a recollection so intense and meaningful that it changes the physical manisfestation of the element. From organized, flat and transparent, the glass attempts to return to organized (if disparate), granular and transluscent. Unfortunately, all it gets is jagged and sharp, but that's one step closer, yes?

I don't want God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I want the serenity of knowing that silicon dioxide is silicon dioxide, regardless of the shape. And rather than the courage to change the things I can, grant me the courage to hand my delicate glass sculpture to others knowing what the risks are. And what of wisdom? Wisdom is knowing that no matter how slowly, all glass will eventually surrender to the inevitable force of gravity. And that is nothing to fear.