"The imagination is really fired when one considers
the many interesting and usefulproperties of glass.
It is as brilliant as a diamond, as fiery as an opal,
the many interesting and usefulproperties of glass.
It is as brilliant as a diamond, as fiery as an opal,
as colorful as the rainbow, light and delicate as a spider's web,
or as huge and massive as a twenty-ton mirror, f
ragile as an egg shell or as strong as steel.
ragile as an egg shell or as strong as steel.
Truly, it can be said that glass is the unusual material; without it,
we would return to the Dark Ages.
With it, science and civilization moves on." - Mostetter
we would return to the Dark Ages.
With it, science and civilization moves on." - Mostetter
Yet, as strong as it is, I know that if I dropped it on the floor of my garage it should shatter into a hundred pieces, schools of little glass guppies flip flopping to every corner of the room as it breaks.
Glass may be defined simply as a supercooled liquid with a viscosity that makes it, for all practical purposes, a solid. Glass is rigid at ambient temperatures and soft or fluid-like at elevated temperatures. It is an object whose exact definition is means to debate. In a broad sense, solids can be considered to be either crystalline or amorphous. Crystals have symmetrical and repeating patterns for the constituent atoms, sharp melting points and cleave in preferred directions. Amorphous solids show none of these characteristics. The glass state is a category of the amorphous state and encompasses solids that may be softened by heating to viscous liquids, which revert to non-crystalline solids when cooled
In it's lifetime, then it's liquid, it's solid, it can be bent and molded, colored and crafted, but always, in it's finished form it is still subject to breaking.
You don't see glass soda bottles as often as you used to, cans being found to be a cheaper and a better medium in which to transport the contents. As a kid, only on our weeks vacation to my Uncle's ranch were we allowed soda pop, the rest of the time we had milk, water and Kool-Aid. My vice of choice was Orange Crush in the tall glass bottle, so many consumed during that one week of "no rules" in the summer, that my lips seemed to be permanently stained light orange.
The bottles then became targets, blown into shining shrapnel out in a stone quarry until the ground dazzled with their remnants in the summer sun, pieces glinting like diamonds. The tiny pieces remained, not flattened by rain to valueless fragments of repudiation, but sharp, waiting, still able to cut, long after they were laid down into silence.
As children we didn't think that glass was composed partially of silicon dioxide, in the form of quartz, which has some of the structural characteristics of diamond structure. Unlike diamond, which has only tetravalent carbon arranged in interconnected six-membered rings, quartz has six-membered rings of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms. The oxygen atoms preclude forming the same structure as found in diamond.
I look around my little house and notice more glass, the windows, obviously, drinking ware, some red vases on a table, a few more pieces that were my Scandinavian grandmothers. On the desk, a picture frame, a montage of shots taken at a friends wedding, much laughter, a dress, a bow tie. In the drawer, another frame, the glass broken where it hit the wall, the picture of someone in uniform scratched by the breaking glass and then smoothed, as if by salvaging, one could mend that which ended in words as shattering as a bullet.
All around me, the colors of glass, red and green, crystal pieces picking up the sun that shines so brightly this day, making me smile. A dark piece that reminds me of the obsidian that is used for surgical instruments. Healing pieces, to be held by cool hands in the dark.
In a small drawer, a small glass angel, grasped tightly in my hand one long day and night, many years ago. In my mind there is still a reflection of a small form in that little angel, tiny white fingers still smelling of the womb, soft reddish hair, her form placed on my stomach for only a moment. I was afraid to touch her, the palm of my hand bloody from holding that angel so tight those many hours of travail that I'd flayed it open, the doctor unaware it was even with me. I saw her form in the glass, she saw her future in my eyes, and we both formed words neither of us were capable of articulating.
In the kitchen a small glass bowl, stained and scarred from the merry-go-round of water spray that was the top shelf of the dishwasher at my parent's house. I didn't need another bowl, but when Dad was cleaning out stuff and asked "do you want anything from this old kitchen stuff" I had to bring it home with me in my suitcase.
As a child, I had a goldfish, one in a long line of goldfish who happily swam and then went to the their final rest with a wave of the Tidi-Bowl man and a couple of solemn words. Not wishing to spend the money on a formal tank, Mom cleaned out the bowl without fail every week until I was big enough to handle the glass myself. During the clean, she carefully scooped General Finn up in her hand and placed him gently in the little green bowl, where he waited in fresh water until his big bowl was clean. Now it just sits, empty, but when I see it, scuffed and clouded, I remember my Mom, and those little Mom things that she did, thinking I'd never, ever remember.
On my desk, a "half a coffee cup" with the words "Reno was so expensive I could only afford half a cup" with my pens and a plushie microbe in it. One of many "tacky" gifts Partner brings me from all over the world. (Seriously TSA let you on the plane with that? You could poke an eye out!) It always makes me laugh to see what he comes up with, and as I sit in my mornings and write, I can smile, and not just a half one.
Glass. Objects formed of science and win, shaped and molded, to posses and display, to cut or or heal, lasting for a century if cared for and broken beyond repair with the slightest of doubts. They hold, they feed, they nurture, they lay things wide open with sharpness and light.
So many things around us, as old as time and as necessary. Remembered there on what was a very long day, surrounded by empty vessels, fragmented and silent, awaiting my tending. As I worked away, I heard the intake, in and out, of my breath, fueling the beat of my heart, the whoosh of blood in my veins. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. As I did what needed to be done, my mind opened, my body filled with purpose and need, strong as obsidian but fragile as glass.
Home now, I sit and look at the fading light seeking shelter within. In the window, the flash of a fin, swirls and shapes of light and form and movement that glint on my skin, kissing it, lips as cool as glass. On the desk a goblet, in which frozen water lay in a pool of amber, the Irish Whiskey, a taste of a sharp knife, not cutting.
The sun drops below the horizon, the old vase falls into darkness, the fish still there, yet not, their spirits long since lifted up to sanctuary and refuge. In my hands, glass beads, laying like bullets as I recite a litany of prayer for those empty forms.
-Brigid
