Last year my weighing scale broke when I bumped it ungently with the vacuum cleaner. I swear I hadn't meant to demolish it. But ever since then I've had a peculiar sense of lightness...hehe. What I don't know can't weigh me down.
Never one to toss anything without first examining it for possible repurposing, I decided the shattered pieces were suitable for a mosaic in some distant future. In this imagined future, I have ticked off everything on my queue of projects. Everything I have ever hoarded has been upcycled and listed in my etsy shop. I know, I dream big.
The present moment, however, gifted me with a doozy of an insight. Behold! Broken glass (tempered glass?) breaks in a pattern similar to dragonfly wings! What intelligent design ; )
If I'd sat there with a Sharpie and doodled, I wouldn't have come up with such a pretty pattern. The attempt at intricacy would've driven me nuts. My hand would cramp. And I'd get a little high from inhaling Sharpie fumes, because it seems to me every time I break out the Sharpie stash the wind is crazy blowing out there and I don't want to crack the window open. I am not imagining this. See what happened the last time? Read this.
Anyway, my mind went where my hand wouldn't. That sounds like it might have erotic overtones, but no, I wasn't going there. I merely mean I did another free association in my head, and connected the following dots:
- A pane of glass seems smooth and perfect. Then it breaks, and all that strength is revealed to be an illusion.
- All the shattered pieces lie there rejected, waiting to be swept into the trash bin.
- The hand that swoops down to gather these wretched pieces can just hold on a minute there, and maybe admire the fascinating shape the glass has taken on in its new "normal."
- There is a similarity between the painful breaks in this smooth, formerly perfect life, and something in nature—a dragonfly's wings.
- The life that does not resist the bad breaks has a more graceful glide into the moment's ease. There are worse things than finding out you have it in you to fly.
