Bits and Pieces

A flash of color in the sand . . . I bend down to pick up a fleck of yellow poking up through the pathway. A small shard of glass. Later, I realize where it came from. Flower and tree beds, covered with broken bits of glass in pure shades of cobalt, emerald green, traffic light yellow, ruby red, tangy orange, probably recycled from a bottle plant or someone’s art project.

A waterway, man-made lined with glass and, beneath it, turquoise and pearlescent marbles. A walkway between floors of two buildings, its sides plastered with plexiglass or plastic (unclear which) panels in luminescent shades of fuchsia, blue and yellow. A window full of apothecary jars and blown glass irises and veined vases.

Hand blown glass balls, hanging from a brass tree. One takes on the shape and appearance of the planet earth, in cobalt and lime green. I choose it for a Christmas present. I’d like to think I can have some bit of the world in my window.

A man stands in front of an oven with a long metal pole. He shapes a glass flower from the hot material he produces after a moment in the fiery interior. The artist, most likely, who created the irises and trumpet flowers in the museum shop’s window. He turns around and smiles at me for a moment. Did he feel himself being watched? How many people actually get to see him at work? I’d guess not many.

He has a whole window full of his work. Translucent trumpet flowers, a citron vase with short, wave-like handles, which vaguely reminds me of rococo mantelpieces, a vase full of glass knobs with long, lean stems, like giant tear drops frozen in time. A little dancing figure, perhaps a clown, clutching his knees. How did he get the face on him?

I could take classes, to learn how to do what this artist is doing. That would require many years, of course, and no guarantee of success. I’m not sure if that is what I want, though. I like to look. Aaron likes to look, too; he takes pictures of the buildings. He doesn’t think he can be a professional photographer or videographer, though. He is going back to school to be a respiratory therapist, calls this life of photographs and video work a hobby.

I see what he does differently. Maybe through the eyes of love or another artist, working in a different medium, but nonetheless unearthing the true value in the work. It takes a special eye to penetrate beyond the surface of things, into the personality of places, objects, people, animals. I wonder if he really knows what he is capable of.

I cannot imagine being anything other than a writer, even if I lived the rest of my life in poverty. I currently reside in a trailer park, in the trailer which belongs to my friend’s dying grandmother. It is cheap rent. It allows me to have things around me I like, without breaking my bank.

Still, I live as people probably imagine writers live, in a kind of isolation broken by Aaron’s visits, my many car drives to work and thrifts and wherever else, phone calls from friends and family. I am not much of a homebody. I used to think that would affect my writing, but it hasn’t. I take it with me.

I get paid to teach, but never really feel like a teacher. There are moments, of course, sparkling and tiny. Students tell me about them sometimes. Aha moments. But they are loose and easily lost, like those bits of glass.

I pick up an acacia pod in a tree bed. Dried into a lovely cream and purple vessel; when you shake it, the beads inside run like rain. Musical instrument. The little moments like this are important. They may be all anyone has, when it comes down to it. Memory is fragile and built of these. Textures in a pod; broken, frayed colors; the wind moving up the side of a building, rippling the netting.

My throat closes up when I see a bowl of parchment, pressed from organic materials—navel orange peels, purple potato skins, the tough threads of a mango. A writer would give her last swipe of the pen to be able to embody such wonders. As a poet, I am constantly trying and constantly failing. But that is the work. To really see into things and people and places. I don’t know if I can do it, but I keep trying.