The Beauty of the Broken

Before my maternal grandmother passed away, she gave each of her children and grandchildren some things that she loved which somehow reminded her of them. One of the items she gave to me was a collectible Hummel figurine of a little German girl playing a guitar because she said the same look that the little girl had on her face was the look she had seen on my face a million times when I was a youngster. It was true that I played the guitar as a little girl and did indeed have blonde pigtails, but my grandmother said it was the inquisitive look on the little girl’s face that I always seemed to have as I hammered everyone with curious questions growing up.

So, while I was never much of a collector of figurines (or anything at all really), the little Hummel girl was very special to me. I could literally hear my grandmother’s voice and remember her face when I looked at it. After she died, I placed it on the windowsill over my kitchen sink so I could enjoy it all the time. That turned out not to be the best decision….

A year or so later, I came home to a small pile of broken pieces of the figurine and a note of apology from my housekeepers. It was so hard to throw the cracked pieces in the trash but what were my choices? Turns out there actually was an ancient Japanese artform that might have helped. It’s called Kintsugi.

Kintsugi is a centuries-old Japanese art of saving broken pottery by repairing and transforming into a new work of art using gold as glue. The name of the technique is derived from the words “kin” (golden) and “tsugi” (joinery), which translate to mean “golden repair.”

The idea of Kintsugi is closely linked to the Zen model of Wabi Sabi, the concept of embracing imperfection. It means finding pleasure in aged, worn, and repaired objects and seeing their blemishes as a beautiful part of the journey of the piece. Kintsugi supports the idea that when we embrace flaws and imperfections, we can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. Because every break is unique, the 400-year-old technique actually highlights the “scars” as a part of the design, life, and story of the piece.

I’m not convinced that my little Hummel girl would have looked more beautiful using the Kintsugi technique, but I have seen beautiful pieces of pottery that do seem even more interesting and beautiful once they were fixed with the “golden repair.”

It’s a beautiful metaphor for our own lives and the healing we must do when we become broken, or even as we age. When we experience mistakes, trauma, or other life experiences that bend, twist, and break us, what a beautiful way to look at the transformation that happens when we recognize that while we can never go back to the original state, we can put the pieces back together with what has been learned, gained, bestowed, or discovered—and then emerge a more interesting, resilient, and unique version of ourselves.

This week, as you contemplate your broken pieces, mistakes, scars, aging, and life transitions… imagine the glue that binds those pieces as liquid gold. See them as enhancements to your original story, wisdom, and beauty—as parts of the ongoing journey to the yet-to-be-completed, one-of-a-kind, priceless work of art that you are becoming.

“When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain.”

~ Andrea Gibson