Oh Yes It Does Too

Matter.

Size.

I mean look at it, seriously, it's HUGE. And gorgeous. And mine.

I don't have my lights or tripod and the bead is sitting on the cushion of the bed in my hotel room, so I promise you, it's much, much better in person. Deeper, less yellow, less opaque, more mysterious, swampy and otherworldly.

I'm still at Bead Fest, only just (I'm leaving in the morning), and while I'm thrilled and delighted by my few purchases, I'm staggering a little because I spent a profoundly wonderful (and no, this is not hyperbole) evening with a few people whom I barely know, and who have managed, just by being themselves, to help me on my way to somewhere I can only describe by its antithesis, a place where not only can others not be trusted, but even worse: where I can't trust my own judgement.

I know it's ridiculous, and a few raucous hours in a restaurant in a hotel in an area where going for a walk means "around the parking lot" can't possibly have significance, but I swear, they do. Nothing happened, nothing untoward (or toward, for that matter) was said but even so, something changed for me.

A few years ago I was emotionally back-handed by someone I trusted and thought I knew well, and thought knew me well, who not only treated me to an appalling betrayal of trust, but was almost clueless as to how I would view it, and honestly, what shook me the most was not so much the turn of events, but that previously I would never ever have believed it, and that I trusted so absolutely, and most frighteningly, that my trust was so absolutely misplaced and my judgement so poor.

I guess there are aspects of one's character which are not often given the opportunity to be expressed, and that new situations may activate facets which were previously dormant and unguessed at, and it's probably unreasonable to hold oneself to such high standards that one can anticipate another human's every reaction to every circumstance. After all, it's not as though we never surprise ourselves, is it?

I believe that there are people who can be trusted. I believe there are people who do take the high road and do the right thing for its own sake and dammit, I believe that some of them might even be fabulous fused glass artists, and if they aren't then someone else is, and I don't care who it is, because I own a fabulous fused glass donut, so all is right with the world.

(Some of them are seed bead artists and metal-workers, if you must know).