I had wanted to take a mosaics course for years, but as with many things we want in life, I'd put it off. There wasn't enough time in the day. I shouldn't take time for me when I should be spending it on the kids or the house. Maybe my Hebrew wasn't good enough to understand the instructions. In any case, this year I finally decided to go for it. And I love it. From the very first session, I knew. I knew that this was my thing. The thing I should have been doing all along. My first project was a simple dragonfly hot plate. Then I refinished a wooden bottle holder for the outdoor table. Next I made a table. I'm currently working on two projects: a lazy susan with a mandala pattern and a large decorative pot with a quail in reeds design. Some projects are based on ceramic tiles. Strong, durable tiles. Others are created from cut glass tiles. More fragile yet more vibrant. Cutting the tiles and creating a pattern out of broken pieces gives me time to slow down. It forces me to stop rushing. For ten minutes or half an hour or several hours, I've got my mind on creating something unnecessary. Something that no one needs. But those unnecessary objects I'm creating make me happy and proud and calm.
I guess that's how it is in the mosaic we make of our lives. We often get caught up in the nit picky cutting and gluing and forget to step back and marvel at the whole of our lives and all the little pieces it takes to make up our own work of art. Some of the pieces are more fragile. Some are more sturdy. But we need them all in order to make the whole of our mosaic. Seen independently, each of the people, experiences and places that go into our lives may seem insignificant or fleeting - yet they all add up to make up the who that we've become.
