Page 98 of Glass Half Full
With stains from my dark red grape juice
As it sloshed over the rim of my cup.
Everyone clapped.
Everyone seemed thrilled.
So for the first few years of my life
I though the point of raising a toast
Was to spill everything out of your glass.”
The audience chuckles as she mimes tipping a glass over and dumping liquid all over the floor. I track her every movement, every shift in the expression on her face. I want to commit this moment to memory—a scene I can play back for the rest of my life.
“At my fourth birthday party
I stood on a chair with balloons tied to the back
And dumped an entire paper cup of fruit punch
On the kitchen floor.
I’d shout ‘Cheers!’ during snack time in kindergarten
And fling my water bottle in an arc over my head
Spraying liquid all over the walls.
When the parent-teacher intervention came about
I didn’t have the words to explain my actions
To let the grownups know my messes were really an offering
A celebration
A moment of recognition.
I had so much my cup overflowed.
Everything I had poured through my fingers
And streamed down my forearms
Leaving sticky trails of orange juice residue
To remind me there would always be more:
More to sip
More to savour
More to share.
Why not pour some of it out?
Throw it to the sky and laugh when it drip-dropped onto the floor?”
