Hi Friends,
Recently I enrolled in a glass fusion class with my friends Debbie and Lynda. If you’ve never done glass fusion, it’s fascinating. You start with a clear piece of glass and carefully cut and arrange colorful pieces exactly where you want them. Every color. Every angle. Every little detail is intentional.
At least that’s the plan.
Then you hand it to the instructor. They put it in a kiln that heats to nearly 1,500 degrees. And here’s the hard part… You can’t peek.
You can’t rearrange one little piece because you changed your mind.
You can’t tell the kiln, “Hey, could you melt that corner just a little less?”
Once it goes into the fire… It’s out of your hands.
When I picked up my finished piece, it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined. Some colors blended differently. Some pieces shifted.
Some parts were even prettier than I’d planned.
And it occurred to me that life works the same way.
Most of us begin life with a picture in our minds of how it’s supposed to unfold.
We’ll marry this person.
Live here.
Have this career.
Stay healthy.
Grow old exactly according to schedule.
Then life goes into the kiln.
Things change.
Plans melt.
Edges soften.
Unexpected colors appear.
Sometimes what comes out isn’t the life we carefully arranged.
But maybe that doesn’t mean it’s any less beautiful.
Maybe it’s simply…different.
Then my glass decided it wasn’t finished teaching me.
A few days later…
I dropped one of my pieces.
It shattered.
My first thought? “Well…there goes my masterpiece.”
I was upset. I’d spent a lot of time, effort, and money creating it. But then I caught myself. Cancer has a way of putting things into perspective. Material things just don’t have the same hold on me they once did.
As I picked up the pieces, I realized something surprising.
Every shard was still beautiful.
The colors were still vibrant.
The light still danced through the glass.
The bowl had changed.
Its beauty hadn’t.
And that’s when it hit me.
Four years ago, when the tumors were first discovered in my lungs, I had a similar thought. “My life is shattered.”
Looking back, I realize something that makes me sad.
The tumors didn’t steal the last four years.
Fear did.
I spent thousands of hours worrying about a future that hadn’t happened.
Waiting for scans.
Waiting for appointments.
Waiting for answers.
Waiting to feel safe enough to really live.
And yet…
Here I am.
Still laughing.
Still interviewing fascinating guests.
Still making new friends.
Still taking improv classes.
Still making glass art.
Still discovering that life can surprise me.
If I could go back four years and whisper something to myself, I think I’d say this: “Don’t spend so much time worrying about tomorrow that you forget to live today.”
As I was thinking about my broken glass, I was reminded of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with gold. Instead of hiding the cracks, they’re highlighted. The philosophy is that the object isn’t less beautiful because it broke – it’s more beautiful because of what it’s been through. Maybe we’re all a little like that. The hardest seasons of our lives don’t have to be hidden. Sometimes they’re the very places where the light gets in… and where the gold belongs.
Because here’s what my glass taught me.
Life rarely comes out exactly the way we planned.
The fire changes all of us.
Sometimes life even breaks us.
But maybe…
Masterpieces aren’t created because everything goes according to plan.
Maybe they’re created because something beautiful can still emerge after the fire…and even after the breaking.
That’s certainly true of glass.
I’m beginning to think it’s true of people, too.
And if that’s true…
Maybe life really does imitate art.
Love and Trust,
Chef AJ
These are the pieces I created this week. They haven’t gone into the fire yet. I have no idea how they’ll turn out, but then again, that’s true of all of us. The kiln isn’t finished with our stories yet.
🐾🦴🐶From The Puppy Files🐶🦴🐾
Because I only recently started enjoying vegan ice cream, I had no idea that pretty much every ice cream, yogurt, and gelato shop not only carries at least a few vegan flavors but also pup cups! This is definitely Shiloh & Trixie’s favorite part about moving to the desert.
After their bellies are full, they like to take a little snooze.
Shiloh really loves his Ducky!