The Fragile Art of Fixing Oneself

on love, art, and slowly trying to fix one's life.

There is a beautiful ceramic object somewhere in your home. Perhaps it is a plate of fine china, an ancient amphora, or a nostalgic thrift-store mug. But whatever it is, you love it dearly. One day it tumbles out of the cabinet, or slips from your hands. With a loud crash it breaks apart, shattering across the ground. Maybe you gather the pieces with the idea of gluing it together, yet never get around to finishing the project. Life happens. More likely you will look at the shards, sweep them up with a broom, and toss them in the bin. The piece, as beautiful as it is, is far too broken. Or perhaps you gather up the pieces, attempt to stitch them back together, but find that it still appears damaged. Even if the vessel is functional, and does everything that is required of it, it's generally no good if it appears to be so hopelessly broken. You might as well buy something new.

Yet some people gather up the shards of thousands of broken objects, meticulously care for them, and then one day slowly mend them back together. One of these people is a potter, Yukiko Kuroda. When she was in her twenties Yukiko was an accomplished professional in the city. But when the stresses of work became too much, she left for a quieter life in the Bōsō Peninsula, a few hours from Tokyo. After watching a friend throw away a piece of broken pottery, Yukiko took up kintsugi, a Japanese art focused on rejuvenating broken ceramics¹. In kintsugi, the potter first lays out the broken pieces and then forms a glue. The glue can sometimes be made from mixed water, rice flour, or lacquer as a binder, but in the traditional style it is made from the sap or urushi of a Japanese Sumac tree. It is a delicate and precious process, since each tree only produces a cup of urushi in its whole lifetime. Once the lacquer is made, Yukiko glues the pieces together all at once, since there is no removing the shards once they are in place. Crucially the urushi is often mixed with a colored powder of silver or gold, which the potter paints in a delicate line through the cracks. What the process leaves is a fundamentally changed object. Black teacups are covered with silver cracks that appear to erupt across the surface like lightning. Blue plates that fractured in dozens of places are suddenly blossoming with dozens of golden vines. Not only are the vessels structurally stronger, but they are aesthetically transformed, often into something even more beautiful than before.

Kintsugi was a bit bewildering to me at first. It was beautiful, and charming, but I couldn't comprehend the required patience. But as I watched a video of Yukiko work, it finally made sense. In the video she moves about her home, admiring her view of a wide green field surrounded by waving trees. Her white cat purrs and rolls about, demanding attention. But mostly she is working. Though it's the kind of labor that is relentlessly nourishing for her. It is work that is joyfully never-ending. She sits at her table, holding the broken objects, meticulously covering the breakages with her gold threads. She then talks about her work, and what drives her to continue with kintsugi.

"As I work on a piece something changes. The object itself is transformed... After working on so many, I feel a transformation in them. It's like there's a life force inside. It's as if I'm reviving a living thing. I try to make each vessel live again."

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I first learned of kintsugi through my ex. In the evenings we used to wind down on the couch, scrolling silently on our phones or watching the tv. One of our favorite shows was a reality competition, set in Britain, centered on amateur potters who gather at a multi-week class to sharpen their pottery skills². What is so unique about the show, however, is the collegial atmosphere. While other reality programs, especially American shows, prioritize cash prizes and contestants becoming media celebrities, the pottery show has the tone of a supportive workshop. The dozens of hobbyists sit patiently in class, observe the judges showcasing new techniques, and then try to replicate the skills. They regularly fail – often spectacularly. When their pieces don’t work, the judges are immediately supportive. They jump in to show how to mend the broken objects. When the errors are too irreversible, the teachers gleefully instruct the students to smash the wet clay on the wheel and begin again. Repeatedly the students, worn out from stress and their impossible expectations, take their incomplete creations and destroy them. Then they take the wet clay, prepare it on the wheel, and begin again. They are almost always smiling when they do this. Exhausted, and heartbroken, but smiling.

One of the judges, Keith, is my absolute favorite. He is a bit imposing at first: tall, broad-shouldered, stern with his resting face. But he is a big softie. When the students make mistakes, he is endlessly patient with them. He never chastises them, but rather shows the potters how to improve. He walks around the studio floor, cheering up the artists, marveling at the plans that everyone has for their works. But mostly he is known for his floods of emotion. When the finished bowls, vases, and vessels are revealed at the end of each episode, Keith almost always cries. He holds delicate mugs in his big hands and sobs with his whole body, his shoulders bobbing up and down, yet he is smiling and laughing. At first I thought this was the most absurd reaction I had ever seen on television. It struck me as a pantomime of pathos, a terrible trick played for the cameras. But the more he cried the more I softened, until one evening I cried too. After all, who could blame him? Here was a hodgepodge of strangers from vastly different experiences, committed to nurturing a creative craft in the few spare moments that life affords, now suddenly building art that they could have never imagined creating. How could a person not cry? It is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

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I cry all the time now. It is sometimes connected to the news, because how could a person not cry when being constantly bombarded by so many atrocities. But more often I hopelessly succumb to the persistent annoyances of being alive in this age of no money, mandated stupidity, and shrinking horizons. Each day something deeply annoying happens, and I am confronted with the awareness that I am not as resilient as I would like to be. As of late people will ask me how I'm doing, and instead of fibbing and saying 'good', I'll respond with the truth — that I am a bit broken. People take this the wrong way, as if I am fishing for pity and compliments. But I share this outlook as an objective observation. Something is not quite working for me. My brain and heart cannot hold onto anything. Some days I am completely wrecked, a heap of shards on the floor that I must carefully pick through. Other times I am merely cracked. On these days I try to fill myself with good things, such as dinners with friends, drinks on the beach, books at the cafe. Things are good briefly, but then the warmth and joy dissipate. I attempt to meet people all airy and joyful, but I inevitably feel myself pulling away and sinking further into myself. I try to write, but I cannot find the words. I try to read words, but the letters slip past. The goodness leaks out of me through thousands of microscopic cracks.

Sometimes I think that if I find the specific moment that I broke, I could trace the fracture and begin to seal the cracks. I recently re-read some of my journals for this purpose. It was an excruciating experience. Imagine reading a novel where a character keeps making insanely stupid decisions, and relentlessly self-sabotaging at every opportunity, only to realize that each disastrous decision was one you had made. The entries encompassed hundreds of pages of terribly human behavior. Too much drinking, too many internet dates, and far too much time staring at a phone and being sad. Hundreds of breadcrumb trails of destruction leading nowhere and everywhere.

I thought I might get answers from Autumn of last year. At the end of last October, I caught up with my ex. We were both traveling through the same big city. It was terribly cold out, and the wind was blowing through the tall canyons of the skyscrapers downtown. It was perfectly fine. Pleasant, even. But there were lulls in the conversation, spaces where the widening distance between us appeared unbreachable. We sat awkwardly on the train together. I didn't know where to put my hands. During one of the pauses she asked me what I 'thought would happen'. She was talking about the election, which was a week away at the time. By her tone, I could tell that she knew the answer. We both knew what was coming. I started compulsively fidgeting, tapping my feet and ripping dried skin from my cuticles. The train car felt unbearably tight, as if it were shrinking and crushing me. I realized that not only was the world changing in strange and terrible ways, but that my ex and I had reached that realization separately of one another. This terrible storm was approaching, but there wasn't one solid person to weather it with, and it was going to pummel all that was left of the life that my ex and I had shared.

I was silently buckling under the pressure of all this. It felt like everything was closing in. When I was nearly totally cracked, she looked at me and asked, "are you okay?" It was the tone of someone who already knew the answer. I thought that I had properly fixed myself since we had broken up. My life had become fun, full of drinking, and sleeping in strange beds, and living with nothing guiding me but sheer impulse. I had purposefully broken myself every single day, until I was haphazardly gluing myself together in the aftermath of each mental break. But it had got me nowhere. She saw completely through the cracks. I wanted to be vulnerable with her, to pour out some dredges of affection and familiarity for her, but I felt completely empty. It was like everything good had seeped out of me. I had nothing to give, no well of feeling to pull from. Instead, I looked at our reflections in the opposite train windows, smiled weakly, and said; "Yes, I'm fine."

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Pottery, like all craft, is an exercise in meditative discipline. You tie your apron, throw the clay on the wheel, press the pedal so that it spins, but delicately so that it is not too fast or slow, and then you open your hands, position your palms so that you are nearly pressing your wrist against the clay, and then you begin to slowly pull backwards, or forwards, depending on whether you want the vessel to widen or rise. It is a wonderful art that I instantly knew I would be terrible at.

I tried pottery once with my ex. I was indelicate, impatient, and unwilling to pause and understand the constraints of the medium. But she was a wonderful student. She listened to the teacher and dutifully incorporated each tip she learned. She pressed the wheel at just the right consistency. She knew how to position her hands for whichever way she wanted the clay manipulated. Her pots and cups rose elegantly from the wheel, while mine tottered about and wildly imploded. I was proud of her in the way you can only be of someone you love. I was privately resentful of her in the same way, too. It was embarrassing to fail so publicly in front of complete strangers. I was visibly the worst performer among all the students. My ceramic creations looked like they belonged in a toilet. I wanted to laugh at how terribly I had done, but I was well past humor. All I could do was take every minor misstep and turn it into an indictment of my personal failings. I was inadequate. I was unsuccessful. I was, for some reason, completely broken.

But she was so wonderful at pottery, which was what I knew mattered. I eventually signed her up for a proper ceramics course. I knew that she would take to it. Perhaps she would even love it enough to pursue it as a creative hobby, one that would take her out of the house and fill her schedule with meaning. I wanted her to have a creative discipline that had no relationship to me. What I did not know at the time, at least explicitly, was that the binding between us was beginning to split. The world was beginning to press against our relationship. We were undergoing a stress-test, but secretly failing. Slowly, and inexplicably, we were pulling away. Perhaps I was preparing myself for the permanent fracture.

One evening I went to pick her up from class. The trees were orange and yellow, the breeze sharp and brisk. I got to the studio early but didn't want to intrude, so I hung back and sat on a nearby stoop. Through the windows of the studio I could see her at her station, an apron tied around her waist, hair pulled back into a bun. She was chatting and laughing with the others, though it was impossible to hear any of it. It was like she on a stage, with a warm yellow spotlight fixed on her, while I was in the audience watching from the dark. Even while talking with others, she was so present and focused with the work. Her hands delicately cradled the objects she was making. Her palms were running along the mound of clay, pinching the finished lid of a mug. It appeared that the clay was merely an extension of her. She looked so clear and happy in the warm light. Already she had built this outpost of serenity that I had no connection to, full of comradery with people I would never meet, and joy for a craft that I would never completely understand. She felt so terribly far away to me. But also, so close. It was the most terrible and wonderful feeling in the world.

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It is many years later. I put my kettle on the stove, measure my coffee, grind the beans to the correct consistency, take the water off the heat, scoop the coffee into the paper filter, slowly bloom the grounds in a short burst, then methodically pour the rest of the water in looping spiral circles until the neck of the carafe is nearly overflowing. The process is slow, and far more inefficient than a machine. But there are some places that machines don't belong.

And then I fill my cup. When I have a long session of writing planned, I bring out my favorite mug. It is dark brown, the color of rich soil that is wet after the rain. On the bottom are the potter's engraved initials. Along the handle there is the faint impression of her fingerprints, and sometimes I look at the smudges left behind, and rub my fingers against them. The mug will break someday. It will all break someday. Every single day is an exercise in breaking. Already there are small patches of glaze chipping away from the cup. The deterioration will only get worse until, one day, it will crack. Then I will have to hold the broken pieces together, fuse them with glue, and then slowly fill in the cracks until the vessel is stronger than before. Already I am doing this in some way each day: grabbing the shards of a broken vessel, and then slowly fusing them back together again. Once, it felt so terrible to be this broken. Now it is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Pine Trees (Inside the Asylum Walls), Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, Van Gogh Museum

1. A list of links & sources:

• The Art of Imperfection: Kintsugi Pottery, Wabi-Sabi and Sustainability - Jamie Lee Reed

• The Centuries-Old Japanese Tradition of Mending Broken Ceramics with Gold - Casey Lesser

• Kintsugi – Art of Repair - Traditional Kyoto

• Kintsugi: Giving New Life to Broken Vessels - Zero Waste Life - NHK Japan (Youtube Video) — this is the one with Yukiko’s life.

2. The Great Pottery Throwdown — highly recommend by the way.