Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
To A Glass, Brightly
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2010 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
When Leonard and I first moved in together, I asked him to get rid of those big pint glasses he had. They were chipped and scratched, but that's not what I minded. I just didn't like dealing with glass, because glass breaks. Anything glass is on loan from a jealous God. I feared the inevitable smashes, so goodbye glasses.
Years passed.
Somewhen I found myself thinking, so what if the glass breaks? There's a saying that you must drink from the cup as though it is already broken. Maybe I'd just had enough hard knocks to appreciate ephemeral joy and function for what they are, instead of clutching them so hard they fall apart. Maybe I'd had enough hard knocks to know that I won't fall apart even if a glass does.
There's a Jorge Luis Borges quote:
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.So now I've bought a few commemorative pint glasses, on trips. One from Pacific Standard. One from Borderlands. One, from an art shop in Providence, featuring two astronauts in love.
We drink water from them, mostly. The clear round glass admits light, lenses it, lets me see a dream of what's on the other side.
They are for him. They are for us. They are for me. They are whole, and someday they will be broken. Not "but," but "and." But I chose them, so I can distantly imagine even cherishing the memory of their deaths.
Comments
Julia
21 Jul 2010, 18:20 p.m.
John
22 Jul 2010, 10:42 a.m.
Your fear of glass breaking wouldn't have anything to do with the unfortunate incident involving that Little Mermaid mug now, would it? =)
kirkjerk
http://kirkjerk.com/
24 Jul 2010, 15:13 p.m.
You know, I was going to ask if I could quote this but then I noticed the CC tag - so probably tomorrow I'll use this on kisrael.
I agree with you on all fronts of this: there IS something very satisfying about drinking from thick glass, and it is extremely frustrating when glass shatters -- you feel startled and chagrined and clumsy, you've lost possibly a nice glass, you've created a physical hazard, you have to clean it up...
I guess I'm not as pessimistic about the state of all my glasses as you are, but still... your view reminds me a bit of the first stanza of "One Art" ( http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212 ) - <br/>The art of losing isn't hard to master;<br/>so many things seem filled with the intent<br/>to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
swap in "break" for "lose" twice and you got it.
Two astronauts in love??? I'd love to see that! Perhaps when Amber and I finally make the long awaited trip to see you and your man... does it look anything like the cartoon at the bottom of http://kisrael.com/2002/11/07/ ? (which i parlayed into a 24 Hour Day Comic: http://kisrael.com/astro/ )<br/>
This whole entry is lovely. I'm glad you have some glasses now, and I hope you enjoy the using of them. I gave a friend an antique teacup and saucer because it reminded me of her, and was dismayed to hear she was afraid to use it. Material objects are only invested with value if we assign it to them, and to me, usefulness is a key to value. That beautiful things are also often useful is one of the things I love best in the world.