What brought them together isn’t nearly so important as how far they traveled.
Although neither of them knew it at the time, they shared the same beginning. Commercially spawned, hatched, and raised, their only memories were narrow and long. Perhaps this is how they learned that the only way to experience life was  swimming forward.

On the day they were released with their countless fingerling siblings they learned there were no more boundaries. 

​He dreamed of swimming to Alaska.

​She yearned for whatever lay around the next bend. 

​He always swam in a straight line. With determination. With purpose. No deviations. No wasted energy.
​
​She swam everywhere.

 Sometimes in the deep, cool pools. ​

Sometimes through the treacherous shallows. ​

​When spawning season came, he said to her, “Come swim with me.”

So she did. ​

​After that first spawning. something shifted.
Not between them.
But within him.

“If even two of our fry turn out to be decent fingerlings, it will be a miracle,” he would say.
“I’ve laid three to five thousand eggs,” she would reply. “The odds are in our favor.”

When they came to their third spawning  he announced, “I’m tired."
​
Even though she wasn’t tired at all, she swam by his side.

​They spawned again.
And again.
Even though their scales lost some of their shine.
And their bodies carried the memory of every waterway.

​“Before we fall apart we should let the bears get us, " he liked to say, 
“Contemplating sushi-side again?” she would reply.
“Spawning is too much work,” he would say. “So much swimming.”

During those conversations she would allow the water carry her for a while because, she realized, the current felt gentler now. It no longer rushed around rocks the way it had when they were young. It simply found a way through. 

​One morning he stopped swimming.

She nudged him toward the shallows where the water was warmer and the sunlight reached the bottom.​

​“I want to stop,” he said.

​She rested beside him as dragonflies stitch blue threads through the air and he settled into the shadows beneath the water.
Finally he asked,
“Was it enough?”
​
She considered where  the water had  taken them.

The ridiculous arguments over which way the current ought to be taken. Which tributary to follow. 
​​
​The years she’d spent swimming beside someone who could only imagine straight lines    

and ​moonlight,

​“Yes,” she said. “I had adventures, too.”
​
When the bear finally came, she slipped quietly into deeper water.
Not to save herself.
Only to give him the dignity of choosing his own ending.

The river carried what remained downstream.
As rivers always do.

​Days later, she found herself swimming alone for the first time in many seasons.
It was strange.
She still drifted toward the sunny places.
Still breached the surface now and then.
Still marveled that the light could scatter itself into a thousand pieces across the water.
She had once believed love meant swimming side by side forever.
Now she understood.
Love was about  water traveled  together.
That which dissolves almost everything
leaving gratitude behind.

​Every finished piece of art leaves detritus in its wake.
Abandoned canvases turned toward the wall. Clay sculptures cracked in the kiln. Sterling silver reduced to a puddle beneath the torch. Hopeful beginnings, countless hours, costly materials…

As artist we eventually learn. Failure isn't waste. It's simply the cost of tuition.

For every fused glass platter I complete, there's a pile of offcuts, slivers, shards, and odd little shapes left behind. It's much like sewing. Once a garment is cut from the fabric, scraps and selvage remain. Once upon a time, I repurposed those as clothes for my dolls.
Which started a 'pattern'.
I've collected 'leftovers' ever since.

Glass artists have an advantage.
The medium invites second chances.
​Thanks to my offcuts, slivers, shards, and odd little shapes… 

​I call them the Bird's Nest Series because that's essentially how they're constructed. Like a magpie gathering twigs, feathers, string, and whatever else catches its eye, I layer dozens of unrelated fragments into a loose, seemingly chaotic pile. ​

​Then comes the magic.

​The stack is heated slowly in the kiln until it reaches nearly 1,500°F. At that temperature the glass begins to soften—not enough to lose its individual character, but enough for neighboring pieces to connect. Glass artists call this a tack fuse. The fragments remain distinct, preserving their textures, edges, and those wonderful lace-like openings, while becoming one solid piece.
At nearly 1,500 degrees, hundreds of unrelated fragments stop thinking of themselves as scraps and begin behaving like a community. Edges soften. Colors mingle. Negative spaces emerge.

After cooling—slowly and deliberately over many hours to relieve internal stress—the piece returns to the kiln for a second firing. This time, it rests on a ceramic mold and is heated to around 1,200–1,250°F, just enough to let gravity do the work. Over the course of another firing cycle, the glass slumps into the mold, while retaining all of its airy complexity.The spaces where there isn't glass become just as important as the places where there is. Light streams through the openings, changing the piece throughout the day. The absence becomes part of the design.

​

​My dear friend and mentor Dianne van der Carr—known affectionately in our circle as Glass Guru / Silica Sensei—has a saying:
"Never refuse to re-(f)use."

​Words which caused me to ponder: aren’t, sometimes, the most beautiful things born from leftovers, false starts, broken plans, and fragments that seemed to have outlived their ​usefulness?

After shaping the bezel and soldering it to 24 gage sterling sheet,  which was was drilled and scored...

To accommodate  the  jeweler's saw... being careful not to slice fingertips!

Huzzah!

In the end, that tiny sliver of beach glass found a second life, cradled in sterling and ready to 'hang'.
It's a nice reminder that sometimes the most remarkable treasures are the ones a child notices when the rest of us are focused on something 'bigger'.


My payment?
​A  client-crafted one of a kind friendship bracelet!
How's that for compensation?

Every spring I perform the same ritual.

While dreaming  of BLTs made with warm Brandywines straight from the vine or a hearty  San Romano marinara with savory sausage or tiny  Sungolds  in  summer salad, I plant. I tend. I cultivate..

Then they arrive.

Curious fun fact, deer don't seem to like tomatoes all that much. They prefer the Tasting Menu. They'll wander into the garden (always after  dusk or before dawn)  to locate the single most perfectly ripe tomato, take exactly one delicate bite—as though sampling the chef's amuse-bouche—and leave the rest dangling on the vine. 
​​Why?
To taunt me, obviously.

Scientists claim deer have an extraordinary sense of smell—hundreds of times more sensitive than ours—and can detect the sweetest, ripest fruit from remarkable distances. They also have a four-chambered stomach capable of digesting an astonishing variety of plants.

Useful adaptations, I suppose.

Sadly, doesn't explain why they insist on taking only one bite out of every ripe tomato.
Do they possess exquisitely refined palates? Or cherry tomato-sized brains with absolutely no long-term memory?

Four seasons ago I planted an Asian pear tree, Every spring she bravely sends out tender new shoots, only to have them nibbled back to tiny green nubs by Velvet-Faced Vandals. Her nearby companion, the peach tree, has fared somewhat better. This year I actually harvested fruit.
​Mostly.
Many of the peaches bore the unmistakable ravaging of Garden Gremlins: one or two delicate bites and then... abandonment.
Birds? Perhaps.
Yet certain evidence was unmistakable.
Hoofprints.
Number 4.
Cloven.

I've considered lying in wait with a paintball gun. Unfortunately, deer can sprint close to 30 miles per hour, leap eight feet into the air, and vanish into the shrubbery before I can mutter, "Rat Bastard!"
Perhaps the answer is a motion-activated spotlight.
Catch them in the proverbial headlights.
​Level the playing field.

Until then, I'll simply imagine revenge in culinary form.
Tonight's special: a rustic ragout of tomato, stone fruit, and Asian pear.
Served over venison.

Bambi, you've been warned!