Glass Is Laughter

From The Writer's Workshop

I love coming to this workshop for a few reasons. I love to feel that I've written something worthwhile. I love to see my writing progress into something better. Feedback on my writing – to not only be able to practice, but to sense that I have actually connected with people around me. And, almost more than anything else, I love to see the people around me progress, to watch them develop their own voice and style.

On June 9, 2015 I wrote the below in an exercise on metaphors.

Glass is laughter. Walking through a store with vintage furnishings, the crystal is always in a cabinet with a perfectly clean mirror as a backdrop. It's the promise of good times with friends. It's the assurance that it has already lived through happiness and parties. Laughter from another room that piques your interest, makes you want to be a part of the fun. That is what it is to see vintage crystal displayed in a store.

Glass is fragile. The tinkling sound that it makes when it hits a surface – the floor, the counter or table. The frozen moment when everyone around stops and looks. The unbearable expression on the face of the person responsible, held on their face until the noise stops and the echos in their head die down. It's this same sound heard from another room, the hilarious quiet that ensues and the knowledge that one person has guilt written on their face and everybody else is looking at it. Nobody would bother to look at the broken pieces.

Glass is laughter. It is faceted shapes hung strategically in a window to paint rainbows across a wall at a certain point every day – rainbows dancing and jolting from ceiling to wall, across pictures and furniture. A small child's large brown eyes watching in silent amazement at the ballet where before there was just a wall.

--e A r n i e