The Glass Factory

03 – 140626

My central life project for the past twenty years just arrived today, delivered by FedEx from Hong Kong. Not the full dream, but the fruit of all the dreaming and pursuing so far.

I wanted everything to be made in the UAE by Emiratis within a maximum of six months. But that wasn’t what happened. Twenty years is a long time for anything to be or not be. When dreams come true, they are not how you imagined them. They change. The journey from the fantasy world to the real world transforms both the dream and the dreamer.

I’m learning as I go.

When I was a teen, I dreamed boldly and called those dreams goals. As an adult, I still pursue them actively. Many have come true—none on my time or on my terms. Some felt good; others were disappointing. When dreams come true, they rarely arrive in the way you expect.

Dreaming belongs to the fantasy world, which is very much your private pool. Reality is a crowded public beach that pulls you toward the ocean and its lurking wilderness. How long can you hold your breath?

Many times during those twenty years, I decided to give up on my dream of the glass factory and move on. But this was the kind of dream that clings to you and won’t let go until it has extracted everything it came to transform. Maybe even the old life I desperately wanted to outgrow and leave behind.

The dream of the glass factory became part of my identity, the way being fat becomes part of one’s identity.

When I was sixteen, I saw that my oil-rich country was working on diversifying its economy. So of course I thought I could help. I chose to pursue glass production—a material that is 100% recyclable and made from our abundant reserves of sand.

I planned for my factory to produce many types of artisanal glass. I pestered everyone I knew—and didn’t know—with this loud dream. Many entertained me and listened, intrigued by my childlike enthusiasm. Others told me it wasn’t for me.

I wanted the factory to host artists, students, and tourists. Now I’m exhausted and don’t want to interact with anyone. I can barely tolerate the artists and craftspeople who produce my work. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even launched yet.

Having a dream justified many realities that were otherwise inaccessible to me. I found the courage and determination to study abroad and to study manufacturing.

One of my school friends tried to convince me not to study abroad because she would miss me too much, even though we were never close. She warned me about ending up working in Mussafah and damaging my lungs. Ironically, she now works in that very same industrial zone and never contacted me while I was abroad. I’m grateful now that I was so determined along my journey that I didn’t allow anyone’s words of caution to alter my convictions or dampen my enthusiasm.

The dream of the glass factory kept me afloat through too many calculus and statistics courses, as well as thunderstorms and blizzards. I visited glass studios abroad and even spent time with an owner who taught me glassmaking. She also showed me what an artist’s and studio owner’s life could look like.

When I traveled with my family, we sought out glass-related destinations. We visited Murano, Istanbul, and Prague. My parents, sister, and I went on a nationwide road trip to gather sand from each of the seven Emirates to use in making the glass. It turned out beautifully, in many ways. That trip remains one of my most cherished memories, and the beads we made from those collected sands are among my most treasured possessions.

I followed many glass artists around the globe, eventually met some, and acquired their work. Later, I was delighted to see pieces by those same artists displayed in museums.

I have a library dedicated entirely to glass books from around the world and across time.

After graduating from university, I spent a year trying to put my plans into motion. They didn’t go very far. I hated that reality could be so uncooperative.

I learned about business laws and regulations and got my first taste of bureaucracy. At the time, there wasn’t even such a thing in the regulations as a glass studio. There were factories and workshops, but no category for what I wanted to build. I didn’t want to build something entirely new; artisanal glass has been made for thousands of years. There simply weren’t any glass studios in the UAE yet.

There also wasn’t much room in the industrial sector for a young woman. I felt as though I was trying to fit my dream into a world that didn’t see a need for such an addition. Art seemed frivolous then. I later realized that perhaps no one had a glass studio because they usually aren’t profitable. My father, always encouraging, suggested I start a business related to food or fitness instead. In the years that followed, restaurants and gyms sprang up everywhere like mushrooms in a forest. I wasn’t interested.

I also met local artists and designers who specialized in objects rather than paintings. Ten years ago, they could all have been counted on my fingers.

I didn’t have a factory or a studio, so I never worked with them. But I’m grateful they indulged me.

I got a real job and told myself I’d try again soon.

There were many iterations of the dream.

Branding and rebranding efforts followed.

Sometimes I clung to my sixteen-year-old self’s vision, even as what I wanted evolved.

The tyranny of our younger selves can be insidious.

Nonetheless, the dream buoyed my spirits whenever office life became too dreary.

I recognize the privilege of having had a dream and the freedom to pursue it. Years ago, I worked with a group of underprivileged women and conducted a survey to get to know them better. I met with each woman individually so she could speak freely. I asked each one the same question: What is your dream in life?

Some were so taken aback by the question that they laughed, not knowing what to say. It seemed audacious for them to dream at all. Many eventually gathered themselves and answered that they wanted their children to be happy.

Meanwhile, I grew up having and pursuing a dream, rarely caring whether others thought it audacious or not. At times, I have felt the guilt that can accompany privilege: the urge to run back to an imaginary starting line and begin again, hoping to prove that I am capable regardless of whatever unfair advantages I may have had.

This is what I call the foolish fairness fallacy that I sometimes fall into. Now, I admit that I need all the support I can get—not to compete and win, but simply to remain in the race.

I still don’t have a factory.

And I don’t want one anymore.

I have a tiny glass studio in my home, though production doesn’t really happen there.

I currently have one product.

It’s jewelry.

For someone who studied car factories and heavy machinery, jewelry never felt serious enough.

But perhaps that was my ego distracting me from appreciating what appeared.

The necklace started as a rosary.

The rosary wasn’t my first choice either.

It was a production limitation.

The first glass item I could produce using Emirati sand was the bead.

The rosary didn’t gain traction and, in all honesty, I never really marketed it.

Anyway, the 33-bead rosary became a 33-bead necklace.

And it’s sitting in its box, ready to be opened and admired.

As much as I want to say this product was made with love, it was and it wasn’t.

It was made with everything.

And that is beautiful too.

There were disappointments and dead ends all along the path.

I don’t know why I expected smooth sailing.

With the package here, it feels like any other day.

There are no fireworks.

I actually feel sad and tired.

I think the exhaustion comes not from the work itself but from crossing the chasm between fantasy and reality and constantly reconciling the two.

Some of us stay in fantasy, and I can’t blame you or myself.

It’s safer there.

Letting go of all that potentiality in exchange for one reality is a kind of loss.

Now the package is here.

I can move on.

Mission accomplished.

Thank you, next.

If the package disappoints me, I feel like it would be too much for me.

I’ve reached a point where I resent the producers enough that I no longer want to go through another round of modifications.

I also have very little faith in the market or in the possibility that anyone would buy my products.

I don’t want to open the package and be disappointed again.

It’s late in the evening.

I’ll open it in the morning when I’m more grounded.

Having a dream to pursue is so much better than not having one.

Even if it doesn’t come true.

Even if it takes so much from you.

Even if, at times, it feels entirely not worth it.

A dream coming true isn’t all sunshine and butterflies.

It comes with everyday suffering too.

But you’re more tolerant of it because you chose it.

Potentiality is sparkly, perfect, and limitless.

Reality can be singular, flawed, and done.

The thing about reality is that you have something tangible to engage with, exchange, and benefit from.

Potential is an arrow you pull back into fantasy and release into reality.

Holding on to the arrow forever makes little sense.

It only exhausts you.

Aside from the dreaming, seeing, learning, visiting, following, meeting, trying, crying, talking, buying, and making, there isn’t much more to bringing a dream into reality.

And it can be fun.

The gap between where I am and where I want to be isn’t as great as it once was.

What a relief.

The gap used to be 80% fantasy and 20% reality.

Now my life feels closer to 80% reality and 20% fantasy.

And that feels so much more secure.

I no longer want false perfection.

I want my true self and life, experienced and lived.

I no longer share my dream.

I share my art.

Now is the time to turn the page.

Twenty years is enough time to move on.

The ego resists reality because the ego lives in the realm of fantasy.

I’m beginning to think of the ego as a trauma response.

A coping mechanism.

I no longer need a dream to escape into or to endure places I’d rather not be in.

So what now?

The dream is realized.

I received many gifts from the journey.

Not a glass factory.

But a glass product on my online store.

Do you like it?

Would you buy it?

My younger self couldn’t start small.

A studio wasn’t enough.

It had to be a factory.

My ego wanted many products and many kinds of customers.

Now I accept that I create one product that one type of person may appreciate.

And I have to trust that it is enough.

Now it’s time to connect with my audience.

To fund more dreams.

To dream some more.

To do some more.

Thank you, my future fantasy of the Glass Factory, for being a safe space in which I could grow into who I am today.

At this stage, I’m finally comfortable living in reality.

I have a rosary necklace to count my blessings on.

I made it to the other side.

What a relief.

Now I can actually be more present.

I opened the package.

And I love what I see.

I’m so happy and so very proud.

If those twenty years were simply for me to wear this beauty today and for years to come, then they were worthwhile.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.