Celebration of Discipline

Saturday, I started a stained glass class. I've wanted to learn stained glass since I was a preteen reading a novel, its title long forgotten, about a misfit young girl who connected with her Gram over her stained glass hobby. Then her Gram dies and she finds a way to stay connected to her Gram by using her exposure to stained glass to create a masterful light design for her school play in order to save some dastardly sets.

I wanted to be that girl on the way to becoming her wizened grandmother, and I wanted to learn about the vividly described rich colors of the glass, the whirr of the grinder,and the snap of glass across the score line.

Of course, the process of cutting glass is difficult, breaks are uneven, and have you ever tried to cut a circle free hand? Stained glass is an art of preciseness, and my character and personality are very imprecise. It is a time-consuming endeavor, requiring cutting and recutting while trying to conserve expensive and beautiful colored glass. Completion of one step requires movement to another process and yet another, meaning my task oriented nature becomes fatigued, frustrated, and tired.

But there's a special blessing in the muffled crack of a run, the undulations of specialty glass under my fingers, and of hues reminding me of the sour balls that I used suck as a child. I need a hobby that is unable to be completed in one sitting, one Saturday, or one late night. I need a hobby that requires me to walk away because the runs aren't working that day, or because I broke my last piece of beloved glass.

I need a discipline that makes me plan ahead, consider design ahead of time, but to hold my plan loosely, ready to be inspired by an unexpected moment or an unanticipated break. In fact, this feels much like therapy without the constant worry about managing my self with intense focus on another. Rather, I am able to focus only on my experience of the glass, the pliers, the grozers, the grinder, and to adapt to the cuts and how they turn out.

Once you've committed to a cut, you can't stop or you'll ruin it. You must learn to work with your mistakes while cultivating accuracy. You can't fake stained glass. Under examination fakes look, well, fake. So this weekend, I'll return to a community college chemistry classroom to spend time with retired and disabled senior citizen Gary who "takes classes because without them I have no reason to get up in the morning," cockeyed middle-aged Rick whose children have left the nest and who seems to need conversation, lots of conversation, and Marie, a younger than me woman who speaks only when spoken to, but whose gentle features soften the room without any words. And we'll cut, grind, solder, and all of that, hoping to learn more about something and to have an experience.