Monday, September 30, 2013

Fragile as Glass

 
Today, sitting at Vaill Beach with a friend, a surfer walked up to us, waving a glass float he had just found tucked into a crevice in the clay bluff. I was immediately envious--I had wanted to find one ever since Wakefield glass blower Eben Horton started putting them out year as part of his Glass Float Project. Details about the project can be found here: www.glassfloatproject.com. Anyway, I was not only envious, but upset with myself for being envious. "I want to find one," I whined to my friend. She looked at me in sympathy, having found one last year.

After she climbed back up the steep Vaill path, I thought to myself, I am going to walk down to the end of the cove. Maybe I will find one. Then I realized that even though I wanted to find a glass float, that I knew they were out there--I hadn't been looking. I had given up.

I give up a lot. Every day I go to work I feel like I'm giving up. My failure to find joy in my livelihood crushes my soul, even though on a day to day basis I usually find some humor or small pleasure in my tasks. Still, it is not enough. The child inside me is very sad and does not believe that things will ever change. I've got a litany of excuses for why the world doesn't want my heart's work, but none of them really matter. If the child inside me was in  charge, then hope would be enough.

Today, not really believing I would find a glass float--I figured that surfer must have found the last one--I finally did. I didn't just wander up to it. I was looking. Hoping I would find one, paying close attention to the flotsam and jetsam at the base of the bluffs. Sure enough, there it was suspended in the torn netting of a washed up lobster pot.

It was much more solid than I expected when I picked it up. Not fragile at all. I felt a strange emotion well through me--delight, then satisfaction. I smiled to myself and became quieter, although there was no one there to hear me. I kept walking until I reached the end of the cove, laid on the sand belly down. Fell asleep like a child holding my glass ball, half believing it was too good to be true. When I woke up it was still there, solid in my hand--something I had longed for. A dream that had come true. Today I fed the child inside me. She gifted me in return with her innocence. With her trust that I will guide us into delight.