The Glass Star

In the market window, the little phoenix saw something she had never seen before.

It was a star made of glass. Twisted and clear and beautiful. When the sunlight hit it, rainbows danced across the floor.

She stood and stared.

She did not move for a long time.

She wanted the glass star more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

She came home and told her grandmother.

"How much does it cost?" asked her grandmother.

"Thirty coins," whispered the little phoenix. "I have three."

"Then we have a journey to plan."

They sat down together at the kitchen table.

Her grandmother took out a piece of paper and a pencil.

She drew thirty small squares in a row.

"This," she said, "is your road to the glass star. Every week, when you earn a coin, you color in one square. When all thirty squares are colored, you walk back to the market and the star is yours."

The little phoenix looked at the paper.

Thirty squares looked like a lot.

"That will take so long," she said.

"Yes," said her grandmother. "That is the point."

The first week, the little phoenix earned a coin and colored in one square.

It felt small.

The second week, she colored in another. Two squares.

The third week, she almost spent her coin on a fancy ribbon at a friend's birthday. She held the coin in her wing for a long time. She thought of the glass star. She thought of the empty square waiting at home.

She put the coin in her jar.

She colored in the third square.

A strange thing began to happen.

By the tenth square, the little phoenix had stopped just thinking about the star.

She had started thinking about the squares themselves.

Each one was a small victory. A small I did it. A small piece of the road, walked.

Coloring them in had become a kind of joy of its own.

By the twentieth square, the little phoenix's friends noticed something.

"You seem different," one of them said. "You used to want everything in the market. Now you don't seem to want any of it."

"I do want something," said the little phoenix. "I want one thing. The other things are not it."

She did not say it proudly. She just said it like it was true.

Because it was.

In the twenty-ninth week, the little phoenix walked to the market just to look at the star.

It was still there.

It was still beautiful.

But her wanting had changed.

The star she was about to buy was not the star she had first seen ten months ago. It was a star that she had built, square by square, with patience she did not know she had.

The glass had not changed.

She had changed.

In the thirtieth week, she colored in the last square.

She walked to the market with her jar.

She bought the glass star.

She brought it home and hung it in the window of her nest.

That evening, the setting sun hit it just right.

Rainbows danced across the whole room.

The little phoenix sat on the floor and watched them move.

She loved the star.

But the bigger thing — the thing she would carry the rest of her life — was the paper with thirty colored squares that she had folded and put in a small box on the shelf.

Because now she knew.

She could want something far away, and walk slowly toward it, and arrive.

That was a power she had not had before.

A few weeks later, her grandmother found her at the kitchen table again.

The little phoenix had a new piece of paper.

She was drawing squares.

This time there were a hundred of them.

Her grandmother smiled.

"What are you saving for?"

The little phoenix did not look up.

"Something bigger."