Enough with the breaking glass already!

You may remember my recurring glass breakage problem this summer. It strikes again. Sunday, after making a beautiful batch of cheese from fresh raw goat milk (obtained as a gift from a friend who keeps goats) I was walking back to the countertop with my bowl of cheese in my slippery hands. To condense the story, I tripped, the bowl fell and shattered into millions of microscopic pieces all around my feet. My feet that were clad in hole-dotted Crocs. I had to stay put while one son yelled out the window to his Dad who was on a two-story, fully-extended ladder. Hubby arrived to save the day, the glass cleanup took over an hour and I spent about another 30 minutes throughout the day removing bits of glass from my feet. ‘Cause who knew broken glass might make it’s way in through holes in your shoes?

Stylish, no? Rainbow bright tie-dye socks and black orthopaedic Crocs? I am on the cutting edge I tell you.

 

At least I wasn’t wearing these!when the bowl shattered into a billion smithereens. And those feet belong to my devastatingly cute almost 16 year old competitive gymnast sister. Let’s just say you should be thankful she’s in the flip flops and I’m in the hiking sock/Croc ensemble.

…And we come to today. More glass, more shattering, more sweeping and gingerly gathering shards- some big and some tiny- to carefully remove from the area where it can harm feet. I had an epiphany that I thought I could share. And be patient with me. This is some pretty deep thinkng for someone who prides herself on being able to see the shallow side of every important conundrum…

Everyone gets the occasional scraped knee…

 

Sometimes things just break. And sometimes it’s not a big deal, but sometimes you feel like you’re teetering on a really sharp edge.

 

But it’s not the end of the world. We clean the wounds, carefully remove the glass and let things heal. This is not news to any of us. But what struck me was that the shattered glass was truly beautiful. And here’s where my deep thought came in to play.

 

 

The glass is still usable. Maybe not in the form it took before. Maybe not in the way the glass maker intended it to be used. But it’s still salvagable, and maybe it’ll even be better than it was before it broke. You can melt it down and remake it a million different ways. It could take on almost as many forms as the number of shards that were scattered around the floor or ground. Even something that was broken to the point that it caused harm can still be a wonderful and lovely thing. Isn’t that comforting?