Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered precious metals like gold, silver, or platinum (thank you Wikipedia).
Leonard Cohen tells us to “Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering; There is a crack in everything; that is how the light gets in.” in his song, Anthem.
Now, I did not link these two beautiful mind images with one another, my dear friend did when I posted the lyrics on my WhatsApp status. I was reminded again of how perfectly little things can bless our days. How precious friends can inspire you even when just sharing a little bit of trivia. I was also reminded how spoilt I am with Google, because I had to search the meaning of her one-liner first.
This week has been weird, and today is only Tuesday. My clan and I have been knocked down by a cold, brought home by the Lilliputians from their adventures at school, I’m sure. The Engineer and I have both been working, albeit slow and the Lilliputians have been home, treating us like waiters… but I guess that is the advantage you have when you are three: Mom puts everything out of reach, Mom is, therefore, the only one that can reach it.
In essence, the list of things to do when we are feeling up to it, is getting longer and causing some distress in this overplanning, overanalysing mind. So you do what you can. While explaining this “not getting round to everything” phenomenon, that tends to pile on the guilt, to my colleague she shared a little bit of her heart, explaining to me that in this time of lockdown and uncertainty and general fear, we all just have to cope, nobody is going to take a look with a magnifying glass to see if everything is perfect.
And although my whole story is a bit convoluted and out of sequence, the message that I want to jot down today is this: There has to be a measure of grace towards everyone, but we especially need to show that to ourselves. Because we are the only ones holding ourselves up to the light to see where the cracks are… and they are beautiful.