Going back to the Kintsugi again, I really feel like I need this in my life right now. The idea that I, that life, and all its pains, can be mended with golden light, metal, something, anything to help make sense of all that happens in a life. I need this idea now.
In fact, this idea comes at a time where it makes so much sense. I have been broken for years, and I have worked hard to mend myself (with a lot of assistance from others). But I didn’t have a visual for what was going on...I didn’t have a concept for healing. And now I do.
It has become a complete visual thing for me. Something that I can see happening in my life, and the metaphorical golden joinery feels warm and healing.
Of course, my life is not being held together with gold, except it is. Relational gold. So many people in my life that love and care about me. So many ideas and thoughts that are supported and nurtured by people in my life.
It would be easy to look only at the losses...to tally them up and mass a campaign for my own self denigration. But I don’t see it that way today. It is almost as if in my healing, that there are some shards that just don’t fit anymore and for the golden joinery to work, I have to let some pieces go. There just isn’t room in my mended surface.
I had dinner last night with one of my favorite people. A woman I admire, who is a learner, a seeker of knowledge. She is successful, happy, fun and just supremely interesting. Once upon a time, I would have wished to be more her. But in my growth process, I would not want that. She is who she is and I am so grateful to have a ring side seat to her life. I am grateful she is in mine. And I am grateful to be who I am. I never thought the day would arrive when I could sit with another woman and be able to appreciate her for all that she is without feeling less than. And today, I feel that way most of the time about most women...and men for that matter.
What interests me most is now, owning my own golden joinery, I can see it in others. I can observe the beauty that is the joined whole, seeing where the gold is pooled in them, tracing around them, creating new patterns and lines. I find other's golden joinery fascinating...and relatable. And I love seeing it.
I love the idea that all the shards of us can be mended together with something as beautiful as gold. That we become something greater than we were before all the breaking. And I love now being able to see it in others. It is such a gift. Such an amazing gift.
My dinner with her last night such a bright spot in an otherwise hard week for me. It felt decadent and almost self indulgent to be in Montecito, dining at a fancy place, leisurely talking, relating and eating. I felt so pampered and cared for, by her and by me.
It may seem like an odd idea to now see people covered in gold...but I like it. I feel like gold is a youthful color and we gray out as we age, literally. This is one reason that I will not stop dyeing my hair, I am not ready for the silver...it will come in its time for sure, but for now I need the gold a little longer.
I feel like all my hard edges are smoothed out, covered over in fine silky gold, that rounds out the parts that are sharp, cutting and severing. The bluntness of me is cut down by the healing smoothness of the gold, and the cracks, they still show, but are highlighted instead of downplayed. And I like that. I mean that is kind of what this blog is all about after all...Me, trying to offer myself up, my life, my experience, my growth. Offering up the cracks, so that perhaps we can share a moment, an experience, a life. Growing always towards the light with room for the darkness, always. A delicate balancing of the shifting tides of life, all joined now together with Aurelian metal that shines brightly and without apology as life unfolds, accentuating the cracks, boldly making them the statement, instead of attempting to cover that which maimed or threatened our survival. Holding it out for all to see, claiming the beauty that is us. All of us, the light, the dark, the golden joinery defining clearly for us that which made us stronger, and offering us up to the powers that be to be judged as ugly, marred, or beautiful. And knowing, believing that it matters not what is ultimately decided, golden joinery is ours, first, last and always.
