Cracked
“I think
what is interesting in life is all the cracks and all the flaws and
all the moments that are not perfect.”
Clemence
Poesy
I have never been a
collector. Yet, here I am in my dotage, making my living by selling
other people's collections. It's always been kind of a mystery to me,
to be truthful, why anyone wants three hundred Star Wars action
figures that are never removed from their boxes and played with. Or
sixty pairs of shoes still in their boxes with the cardboard inserts
and stretchers. Or, as I am wading through right now, six large
containers of Christmas ornaments—never used, still in their
plastic envelopes in their original boxes. It's just not something I
can wrap my head around.
What I do seem to have is
a collection of cracked things. Collecting them was not
intentional—it was more like a rescue mission. I looked at these
cracked things that others told me, “just throw it away—it's no
good if it's cracked or chipped,” and something in me rebelled.
“But look at this work,” I said, “it's great work! You can't
just throw this away!” Thus....collection of cracked things—cracked
planters, cracked bird bath, the list goes on.
This big bowl, for
instance, was found in the barn of my former
mother-and-father-in-law. It was in five pieces, dirty, and covered
with dead leaves that had been stuck to it for decades. Who, in their
right mind, looks at something like that, and thinks it's a treasure?
Someone who's just as cracked as that bowl! Oh, yeah, that would be
me.
I happen to believe we
need our cracks. It is our broken places that humanize us; they are
the joints and hinges that allow us to move away from idealizing
perfection. It is our cracks that allow in divine light. The
late essayist, Logan Pearsall Smith, said: “It is through the
cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in.” I want that
ecstasy crack, don't you?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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