Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery with gold. It is the understanding that the piece is more beautiful because it has been broken. The scars are visible remnants--never concealed, but revealed with gold lacquer. While the piece may never resemble the original, its golden veins glisten with an entirely new beauty.
I think many things in life end up being broken: art, love, friendships, freshly manicured nails, the list goes on… And in western society, we possess a mindset that when something is broken, we must throw it away. We don’t believe in carefully gluing wounded edges back together. We believe in replacement, buying a new model and proceeding to start the cycle all over again.
Hollywood cinema often depicts the romantic meeting of two people; think Pride and Prejudice or Roman Holiday. An entire film revolves around two characters meeting and falling for each other, but the “happily ever after” ending is merely the beginning of their relationship. And we don’t get to see the actual course of a relationship. Of course, not all movies are like this, but the more I watch romantic classics, the more I realize they are hardly about love at all.
Part of being in love is the trials and tribulations. The acknowledgment that we as humans are flawed, despite how perfect a person may seem. And I’m not talking about unrequited love (though, that has its trials and tribulations too…trust me I’m an expert). I’m talking about long-term relationships way past the honeymoon phase when the passion has fizzled and all you are left with is the actual person.
As early as childhood, we are exposed to broken relationships. You hear your father whisper across the dinner table about the couple across the street who seems, “perfectly happy.” To which your mother replies “I didn’t see that divorce coming,” though that’s the first time you’ve heard the word—divorce. That changes quickly, however, as divorce sweeps through your community like the Bubonic plague. And each night you place your palms together to pray your own parents won’t be hit next.
No wonder pessimism hovers around the idea of love; we have been exposed to its extremely fragile nature since we were children. Though we have never been exposed to the mending. And so we must look to the art of Kintsugi to remind us that lovers can grasp onto the precious, broken pieces of what once was to build something stronger, though different and even more beautiful than before.
