I've mended my first sparkleball so many times it looks like somebody
sat on it. But lit up at night, it still looks almost perfect.
<<<<<<<Make Your First
Sparkleball!
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My
Sparkle ball story begins
on a dark November night in 1993. Trudy and I were zipping down a two-lane
outside Tyler, Texas when I shouted Stop! Turn around! Go
back! Go back! Trudy, who was driving-- and being one of my oldest
and most trusted friends-- made an immediate u-turn. And then another,
until we were bouncing up a dirt driveway to a rundown mobile home.
There,
strung across a clothesline, were a bunch of lit-up plastic spheres. Each
one blinking, dancing, whirling to its own multi-colored rhythm. It looked
like a formation of little UFOs hovering over this piece of Texas.
A
man carrying a beer came
out. (By this time, Trudy thought I was totally crazy. I mean, we're on
a dark stretch of Texas highway about to talk to an inebriated man-stranger
outside a battered mobile home.) But I was hypnotized. I got out of the
car and walked over to the clothesline. The man said the "cuplights"
were for sale.
He
pulled one down, and up close, I could see it was nothing more than a
bunch of plastic cups and a string of Christmas lights. It was hard to
imagine such humble objects coming together to make something so absolutely
magical. We bought three: one for me, one for Trudy, and one for our childhood
friend, Finley, who we were on our way to see in Dallas.
A
few days later I flew home to Richmond, Virginia clutching my "cuplight"
as a carry-on. It was an immediate hit with my children, Augustus and
Juliet, and that Christmas it became a treasured holiday tradition. (I
don't remember when we first called it a Sparkleball, but we did and that's
what it's been ever since.)
All
these years that
old Sparkleball has been my constant companion. Through divorce and a
move from Richmond to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Across the country
to San Diego where I now live. It's a little worse for wear. Some of the
cups are paper-clipped together. Others are stapled. I've mended it over
and over, but the lights still work fifteen years later.
I
finally taught myself how to make Sparkleballs and now have made dozens.
I've had Sparkleball-Making Parties. I made Sparkleballs for a bar in
San Diego. Friends say I should start a business or charge for the instructions.
But
every Christmas when I hang up my original Sparkleball and plug it in,
I'm reminded of that dark Texas night and how it's those little detours
we take in life that give us the most joy. And I reaffirm the fact that
if I, an egghead serious negativizer, can get this much pleasure from
something so simple, maybe I need to give it away. This website lets me
do that.
Just
call me a Missionary of Sparkleballs.
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