Humpty Dumpty

When we moved, I put one large terra cotta clay pot in another, packed them away and moved to our new home. Later while unpacking I tried to pull them apart and found they were stuck together. They were good sized pots so I decided I would break and sacrifice the inside one. I got a hammer and took a whack at it. It fractured into a jigsaw of shards.

I looked at the pieces and thought I could put it back together and use it. I got some glue and started with the big pieces first to smaller pieces last.

It felt I had really done something. Proud.

Things get broken. Most of the time I just live with the broken pieces agonizing over my loss. Granted, I could have driven to Home Depot and bought a new one if they hadn’t sold out of all of them because of people getting outside celebrating their vaccines.

I could have forgotten about the pile of clay pieces and begun any one of a hundred things I needed to be doing. Instead, I went about reassembling the Dead Sea scroll on my porch.

I like fixing things. I have tried fixing people but that doesn’t work as easily. It’s like the question “how may psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?” One. But the lightbulb has to want to change.

Attitude is important.

While walking with Kristi this morning I picked up and moved four earthworms across the street into the grass. I think one was dead but the other three; I imagine they were grateful for some unknown something. I was that something.

In a society that says “throw it away and buy a new one” developing an attitude of repair could possibly make its way up the ladder to our more overwhelming problems. Small to big.

Today’s word is Kintsugi.

- Wyatt