Thursday, January 02, 2025

Writing I love: "We're All Made of Horrible, Beautiful Scars"


I found this piece of great writing last summer, when we were in the midst of our own heartbreak, and it was just so thoughtful and meaningful: 

Cole Haddon / 5 am Story Talk 
We're All Made of Horrible, Beautiful Scars 
Australian rocker Nick Cave, Native American activist/poet John Trudell, and a 14th-century Japanese shogun have thoughts about how to put ourselves back together through art 
It is a story told in anecdotes, about a teenager who fell off a cliff, about a fire that killed a man's whole family, about a 14th century Shogun, about Japanese philosophy, about the death of Haddon's father. I can't excerpt it - it needs to be read as a complete piece -- except I can explain this:
 ...  Kintsugi, or “golden joiner”, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer that’s been mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. It treats breakage — but, really, repair — as part of the history of an object. No attempt is made to disguise the “scar”, so to say. The cracks and repairs are, instead, part of the life of the object.... 
 In their own ways, all of the people in Haddon's stories found how to continue:  
My heart doesn't hurt anymore 
But my soul does, maybe 
That's what souls are for, to 
Take the hurt the heart can't take 
The heart can't take 

...But really, the act of putting ourselves back together through our art. The breakages, the scars, the hanging on lines on full display. Because nothing remains the same forever.

2 comments:

lungta said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJDCYh5iWQs
Watch out for warriors with nothing left to loose.

Cathie from Canada said...

Thanks, lungta - what a great song! Especially for now. Stevie Nicks is a poet.