[2024-03-05] To repair with gold

"Allow your light to shine brightly; there is never enough of your luminescence in this sometimes darkened world."
— Cyndie Spiegel, March 5 entry in A Year of Positive Thinking

On September 29, 2020, precisely two months after my unexpected diagnosis with ovarian cancer, I stopped by my local bookstore to pick up A Year of Positive Thinking. The book was a gift from a family member. I read it every day, often drawing inspiration from its positive messages as I navigated my cancer journey. September 29 was just two days before the start of chemotherapy to deal with the ovarian cancer that remained in my body after my surgery the month before. The entry for that day encouraged me to "Slow down. Breathe in. Look outward. See inward. Exhale. Repeat as often as needed."

One of my favourite entries in A Year of Positive Thinking (below left) is about the wisdom of Kintsukuroi, the Japanese practice of repairing ceramic with gold. I read it on January 2, 2021, after having completed five rounds of chemotherapy. On that day, I felt that I had stood up, dusted myself off, repaired myself and discovered that I was whole again.

I thought of Kintsukuroi today as I exchanged messages with a former colleague whose spouse had recently undergone surgery for breast cancer. She is likely, and understandably, still in the mourning phase. I, too, experienced sadness after my ovarian cancer surgery (and again, post mastectomy, when one of my breast implants had to be removed, leaving my chest unbalanced). But on January 2, 2021, four months after my ovarian cancer surgery, when I could see the chemotherapy finish line on the horizon, perhaps the right time had come for me to embrace the notion of Kintsukuroi.

After I wrote my post Kintsukuroi, a friend sent me a link to Peter Mayer's song Japanese Bowl (below right). It's a beautiful song, both lyrically and musically. Mayer sings that "in a collector's mind / All of these jagged lines / Make me more beautiful / And worth a much higher price." He might have written, "in a lover's mind and in my mind, all those scars make me more beautiful and worth a higher price."
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"The Wisdom of Kintsukuroi"
"Japanese Bowl"
Cyndie Spiegel, A Year of Positive Thinking
Peter Mayer, Heaven Below
Kintsukuroi is a kind of Japanese ceramic style. The word Kintsukuroi means "to repair with gold." In the Kintsukuroi tradition, when a ceramic piece breaks, an artisan will fuse the pieces back together using liquid gold or gold-dusted lacquer. So rather than being covered up, the breaks become more obvious, and a new piece of art emerges from the brokenness.

Kintsukuroi embraces flaws and imperfections, but it also teaches the essence of resilience. Every crack in a ceramic piece is part of its history, and each piece becomes more beautiful because it has been broken.

You will fail.
You will fail.
You will break.
You will stand up and dust yourself off.
You will repair yourself again and again.
And eventually, though you will be different than before, you will again become whole.
You will be even more beautiful precisely because of all of this.
You will be a better person because of your imperfections, not in spite of them.
I'm like one of those Japanese bowls
That were made long ago
I have some cracks in me
They have been filled with gold

That's what they used back then
When they had a bowl to mend
It did not hide the cracks
It made them shine instead

So now every old scar shows
From every time I broke
And anyone's eyes can see
I'm not what I used to be

But in a collector's mind
All of these jagged lines
Make me more beautiful
And worth a much higher price

I'm like one of those Japanese bowls
I was made long ago
I have some cracks, you can see
See how they shine of gold
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