First Time

there it was -- staring right at me. i stared back. it stared back. it's gleaming eyes taunting me, telling me i could never make anything as beautiful.  we kept at it for a few minutes. my eyes started to water, my mouth went dry and my knees started to go wobbly on me. my hand reached for the computer mouse but i could not bring myself to click away from the image. it had me. i lost.
that fateful friday i found myself trolling a nearby mall looking for supplies. i checked out the huge department store after which the whole mall is named and found a few but i gave them one look and didn't really feel THAT excited about what they had since they were all in plastic. i went to another and walked out within a few seconds -- too tacky. i was about to give up (i had given myself an hour to browse so i would have enough time to get home by 9 pm) when my eyes fell upon a shop that was decorated like a garden gazebo. having lost all but one little percentage of hope, i walked into it and i found what i was looking for. i could not decide what to buy, i could not bring myself to choose. i wanted them all. but my wallet said NO so i reluctantly put back several of the items i had picked and walked over to the counter with the ones that i knew i had fallen into a straight-away, head-over-heels, no-looking-back, you-and-me-against-the-world kind of love.

that same evening, i sat down with makeshift clumsy tools and proceeded to bend, shape, loop and twist. an hour later, i sat back in my chair and smiled. there it was -- my very first one. not bad for someone who never took lessons. not bad for something made using my dad's heavy, dumpy pliers. i went back to the website where i saw "IT", raised my masterpiece in triumph to the computer screen and said: "See, I made one."

here are photos of that first piece. my very first one which i have kept and which i intend to keep.