As a child, I learned a great many lessons. Some I was taught by my big sisters, some I picked up from observation of the world around me, some I discovered the hard way and others I gleaned from little pearls of wisdom my mum passed my way. I am not about to try and contain all these gems in one late night blog; that would be impossible. But I am going to share my thoughts on an important ideology we were brought up on.
Lovelyman will tell you that a number of ideas our mum would have us believe are largely nonsensical. Even mum would agree – some are. But this particular lesson, is something we have all hung onto. I was reminded of it last week, when an interesting image popped up on my friend’s FaceAche timeline. I’ll start with that:
Kintsukuroi – a Japanese method of treating pottery. Like so many Japanese art forms, this is a thing of beauty. However, it is its philosophical meaning which caught my attention. By turning the pot’s cracks and crazes into part of its design, the Japanese artist is enhancing the item’s beauty through its damage. The piece becomes more attractive through the act of being broken and then repaired.
As a little girl, I lost track of the number of times mum would tell us that when something is broken, you love it even more. That applied to teddies whose stuffing was bursting out, dolls whose hair was thinning, ornaments where paint was chipped, musical toys with loose connections… anything that was a little less than perfect. As a child of the eighties, I grew up with the Raggydolls theme tune on my internal jukebox, so the notion of acceptance for those who were made imperfectly was something of a familiar thought. But that was fiction. Those dolls weren’t real. All these years on, I can’t help wondering whether mum’s own determination to love the broken things even harder stemmed from something much closer to home.
Her youngest daughter (yours truly) came off the production line with a couple of faults. Mum would never describe me that way, and she’d hate me for calling myself faulty, but whether we like it or not, a chronic illness is often perceived as damage. Nobody would ever question our mum’s love for any us, nor our devotion to each other; anyone who knows us would agree that we are a dysfunctionally functional family. But could this lesson, which I always thought was mainly instilled to deter us from nagging for replacement play-things, actually have been geared towards encouraging us to embrace our own, and each other’s flaws? Could it be that mum was trying to prepare us for survival?
It is no coincidence that I am always drawn to ramshackle houses, dilapidated barns, ruins, battered leather, worn shoes and rickety things. If something tells a story through its wear and tear, I am immediately attracted. Like I said, it is a lesson I have carried with me. But it has served me more significantly too.
I was once offered laser treatment to remove the scar that runs down my abdomen. It is the scar from three major surgeries; operations which saved my life. My consultant joked that we should insert a zip. I’m not sure how hard I laughed. It is not a pretty thing, as you can imagine. However, the thought of trying to remove the evidence of the battles I’ve fought and won is an odd one. I may not like my scar, but it tells the story of several chapters of my life. It is my mark of survival. It is a part of me. So I don’t love it, but I accept it.
It is true that it becomes harder to hide an event when a wound leaves its indelible mark. But like the broken pot for the Japanese craftsman, the crack is merely a clue to something which has happened during a lifetime. The break hasn’t destroyed the pot, just presented an opportunity for change. Maybe the pot will be perceived a little differently in future with its pretty gold lines, but there is undoubtedly someone who will love it even more for those. What one person sees as signs of wear, another will read as decoration.
We are all so quick to bury the bumps and bruises we withstand. It seems to be instinctive to want to hide our failures, to deny the existence of our mistakes, to lament our flaws and to berate ourselves for being anything less than perfect.
Yet everyone has a favourite jumper in their wardrobe. It is usually ancient. Sometimes threadbare in places. And, more often than not, it comes out when we feel vulnerable or low. Why? Because its age makes it comforting. For some people it might be a pair of jeans, a teddy, a blanket, a fraying handkerchief. The point is, if we love inanimate objects for their age; if being battered is something appealing in those, why must we reproach ourselves for the cracks which appear on our own lifelines?
I think it’s time we all applied a little kintsukuroi to our daily routines. I have even discovered a website dedicated to guiding people through Kintsugi Living. While that could be taking things a little too far, there is a lot to be said for letting scrapes and bumps be nothing more than chapters within a much bigger tale. Of course some cracks are harder to repair than others, just as some falls are more difficult to recover from. But they are nothing to be ashamed of. Being broken is not what defines us, however many times it may happen, and however extensive the breaks may be. It is how we choose to repair the cracks, and the work we put into doing so, that speaks volumes.
Kintsukuroi; love your imperfections. After all – perfection is overrated. But surely everybody knows that!
