Just told someone in an email that I was going to try to write a blog entry that sounded as though it might have come from a sane person.
I have no idea why I told her that because now everything that jumps to mind is…well…it doesn’t sound all sane and put-together and “here is something to PONDER”, the way a good blog entry should. I have a lot of deeper thoughts I want to explore. Things about the way the world is working right now that make me feel as though we are slouching towards Gehenna. But it’s Monday, and Mondays are their own Gehenna so I don’t want to dive right in.
And also, you know, I’m really trying to focus on seeing the beauty in each story. And I’ve lately become convinced of something more and more. We tend to mourn as things die or break or become used up. It strikes me of late, however, that the mourning should come with a reminder that a broken thing is not ruined; it’s simply expanding its story.
A lamp sits on a table. It is a thing with a purpose or two; it lights the room and decorates the room.
A lamp lies broken on the floor. At first glance its purposes are thwarted as it can no longer light the room and it is no longer an adequate decoration. But how did it break? It did not go from where it was to where it is without something intervening. Was there a ball thrown by an enthusiastic toddler? Did the lamp get knocked to the floor when the door was opened and the woman who answered it then jerked her arms in gleeful surprise to see her husband home early from the war? Did it crash in a fall while a man stumbled toward the couch, drunk and depressed from losing his job? The lamp on its own is just a thing, but when it is broken it becomes part of a larger story about the moments in our lives that are our own stories assembling themselves. Broken things are souvenirs of lives being lived.
I’m starting to think that broken things are more special than we want to give them credit for. That’s my new theory anyway.
Sorry, Jess. This wasn’t as sane as I had hoped. But then again…it’s me and it’s Monday.
You know what? I needed to read this, regardless of its mental health provenance (which is FINE, needless to say), and to think about broken or passed things, and their stories. So, to hell with sanity. Thanks.
It just sucks when we start viewing ourselves as the broken pieces (albeit part of larger stories). I feel that way sometimes.
I agree with Jill about it sucking. But here’s another point of view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY30HUwArWM — Julie Miller’s “Broken Things”