Woody’s award-winning novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.
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From Woody’s column archives, June of 2017…
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“Kintsugi” is the art of repairing broken pottery with seams of gold and, in the process, making the object even more beautiful for having been broken.
There is, however, one more ingredient necessary to make this magical transformation a reality: a new perspective. One must embrace the gilded flaws.
Kintsugi, it seems to me, need not be limited to pottery. Looking at pieces of our everyday lives with a new perspective can bring previously unseen beauty into focus.
For example, consider a parable of a farmer who had lived on the same land his entire life. It was a good homestead, yet as the years passed the farmer began to wonder, “Is there something better for me?”
Like his crops, the farmer’s discontentment grew and grew until he eventually decided to find a better farm. He listed his property with a realtor who prepared a truthful ad putting emphasis on the positive features: “Ideal location, modern equipment, healthy livestock, acres of fertile ground with dependable irrigation and high yield on harvests, sizeable well-kept barn, charming two-story house on a hill overlooking the flat pasture.”
When the realtor read the ad to the farmer for approval the new client replied: “Hold everything! I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to sell after all. I’ve been looking for a place just like that my whole life!”
I thought of this fable when my daughter came home to celebrate her thirtieth birthday. In addition to a big party that provided a reunion with dear friends and family, Dallas enjoyed something very small and routine: taking our ten-year-old boxer, Murray, for his morning and evening walks around the neighborhood.
“Every day we would walk the same one-mile loop,” Dallas noted afterward, “yet every day I would notice new, startling details: a small bird strutting jauntily across the street, like a band leader in a parade; sprinklers watering a front yard of brown grass; a toddler shrieking with glee, running in circles in a driveway as her mother watched with a tired smile and raised a hand to us in greeting as we walked by; bushes laden with bright red berries; a father and son playing catch.”
After a pause, she added a golden observation: “So many rich and beautiful details that would be so easy to miss if you were not paying attention and looking for them.”
Murray, all the while, exuberantly sniffed plants and lampposts and studied the sidewalk as if it were brand-new territory to explore – even though he had traveled the route thousands of times before. Perhaps just as a man can never dip his hand into the same river twice, a dog never walks the exact same path.
“My walks with Murray,” Dallas further shared, “were a reminder to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and see the beauty in each day because, as my brother likes to say, ‘Each day is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.’ ”
Speaking of Greg, he phoned me shortly thereafter after finishing an evening run in New York City. The run itself was nothing special, a short four-miler after a long workday at a relaxed pace on a paved path along the East River.
Indeed, it was fairly indistinguishable from hundreds of runs he had done since moving to Manhattan a couple years earlier except for this, which he shared on the phone: “Pops, you should have seen the sky and clouds changing colors over the Brooklyn Bridge—”
His voice overflowed with kintsugi.
“—it was so beautiful I paused mid-run to just look up and take it all in.”
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“Woody’s Holiday Ball Drive” is underway! New sports balls can be dropped off through Dec. 8, or online orders delivered to, Sanbell at 1672 Donlon St. in Ventura, 93003. Please email me about your gifts at woodywriter@gmail.com so I can add your generosity to this year’s tally and acknowledge you in a future column.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.
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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.