What is Glass Made of?

Somehow I am writing this on my elliptical, proud of my balance for the first time in my life as I hold a pen and paper in my hand and go at it. It’s a gorgeous day, sunny, mid-seventies, and I’m very happily sweating, loving every movement.

The door is open but I’m staring out the window at the orange tree in back. Sometimes I look out at it through the stained glass window my dad made for me when I was little. Sometimes I study the tree’s leaves, ripe oranges, and contorted trunk through the clear glass of the window that is splattered with the mud of a recent storm.

A fly is stuck. It’s trying to escape out the window. It tries to break through the glass. It keeps falling. I’m now at the height of my workout, soaking wet, muscles burning, loving it even more. But I watch the fly. It falls again and again, banging against the glass in futile flashes of energy.

I ask myself with each leg rotation, “What is glass made of?” The fly doesn’t understand either. And neither of us is looking for a scientific answer. We can see the sun through it, feel it even. The light has the power to penetrate through the glass. But we don’t. I feel like the fly, pounding into the glass over and over again.

I can see what I want, feel it, but there is always a layer of glass I am pounding up against. Sometimes I break through, leaving the shards of glass behind. But then it’s like a glass box descends upon me. I can still see, feel even, but the layer of glass is there at every turn. And I just can’t figure out what glass is made of any more than that dirty fly that is about to die on my windowsill.