{"id":7589,"date":"2016-04-13T21:25:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T01:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7589"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:50:35","slug":"the-daily-grind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=7589","title":{"rendered":"The daily grind"},"content":{"rendered":"

At\u00a08 a.m. today I was grinding.<\/p>\n

Not coffee. Not my teeth. Not at the proposal budget due tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I stood for half an hour in front of the grinder, feeling my way with bits of glass.<\/p>\n

It made the whole day go better.<\/p>\n

The glass grinder is a fairly simple machine. Physically it’s a big plastic base for the motor, and the functional part is just a grinding bit that’s about an inch in diameter. Add water and a bit of wet sponge to contain the glass dust. Flip the switch and the bit goes around. That’s it.<\/p>\n

Hold the glass against the grinding bit, and it slowly gets eroded.<\/p>\n

It feels lovely.<\/p>\n

The noise of the motor didn’t bother me. The risk of ripping my fingertip didn’t bother me. The slowness of the process didn’t bother me.<\/p>\n

Like everything else<\/a> to do with fused glass, it’s pure meditation.<\/p>\n

I love feeling that tiny amount of give as I press the glass against the bit.<\/p>\n

I work at making my movements fluid, so that the glass edge is a\u00a0smooth line.<\/p>\n

I watch\u00a0the power of slow, steady abrasion to turn sharp edges into lovely curves.<\/p>\n

There is nothing else in my mind. It doesn’t matter that I will have to spend the better part of today to do tedious budget work. Now is all that matters.<\/p>\n

I hold the glass against the bit. I watch it take shape. I breathe slowly and steadily.<\/p>\n

\"glass<\/p>\n

Each\u00a0bit of glass has been cut or snapped as I searched for its inner shape. The grinder lets the shape dance. As though I am freeing a spirit that’s been trapped.<\/p>\n

I can’t believe that I don’t start every day doing this.<\/p>\n

I think I will sleep better<\/a>\u00a0tonight.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2015, the year I first held glass against a grinding bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At\u00a08 a.m. today I was grinding. Not coffee. Not my teeth. Not at the proposal budget due tomorrow. I stood for half an hour in front of the grinder, feeling my way with bits of glass. It made the whole day go better. The glass grinder is a fairly simple machine. Physically it’s a big … read more The daily grind<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[67,35,82,886,284,884,630,536,885],"class_list":["post-7589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvisation","tag-67","tag-art","tag-beauty","tag-edge","tag-glass","tag-grind","tag-meditation","tag-shape","tag-smooth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7589"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7599,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7589\/revisions\/7599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}