“When a piece of pottery breaks, the Kintsugi craftspeople place powdered gold into each crack to emphasize the spot where the break occurred. Exposed rather than concealed, these fractures and their repair occupy a central place in the history of the object. By accentuating this memory, it is ennobled. Something that has survived damage can be considered more valuable, more beautiful.” Andres Neuman’ FRACTURE.
OK, Here’s the big question. I’m not pottery, but I’ve survived damage. Do the rules still apply? Am I still valuable? Beautiful? Was I ever? Damage starts…now.
A little confusing from the x-ray, but the dark piece in the center with the serrated edges is my titanium left hip. The mushroom cloud that is partly obscured in the upper left is part of it, too. It’s supposed to move around in the blob above it, and for the most part, it does. No powdered gold, but then you can only see this in an x-ray, so no waste of valuable gold, pleasing only to the beholder, either.
The Room Where I Happened
This is the part you can see, but only when I’m getting dressed. And no powdered gold here, either. After about eight or ten years the stitches remain. The incision runs down the railroad track of my hip and turns to the left. It’s a pretty short train, just a few inches long. No doubt I am “ennobled” by this repair.
And here’s another…
I could have used some gold powder in 2006 when a car ran into me while I was riding a bike. Instead I settled for some plastic surgery, a new helmet, and about $15,000 from the negligent driver.
2006
2020
Wow! Fourteen Years has done a whole lot more damage than the negligent driver. I see a little line (actually, several little lines), but the one from the accident is still visible. It runs from a bit above the two prominent horizontal lines in my forehead down to above my left eye. It’s not gold either. Does it lose value?
Septoplasty
Most of my life I had trouble breathing through my nose. Finally, an ear, nose and throat doctor diagnosed by problem as a deviated septum. Twelve years ago I went under the knife, and the kind doctors un-deviated my septum. For seventeen days after that I lived with two cotton inserts in my nose, each of which was the same size as a boxcar. After the operation I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I couldn’t smell. I felt tremendous pressure in my face, and my nose swelled to such a degree that I looked like, was it Mr. Magoo? Not until the cotton inserts were removed could I breathe comfortably again, and once again, since all of the breakage was on my inside, I didn’t get any gold powder, I didn’t feel ennobled. I didn’t feel valuable. I could just breathe freely through both nostrils, and that has made all the difference.
The unkindest cut of all
On March 12th of this year, just a couple of days before we were issued the shelter at home directive, I was pruning some bushes in the back yard. I reached down to hold a branch with my left hand, then delivered a four stitch slice with the pruning shears in my right hand. For six weeks I was unable to play guitar, as the pain when I touched the strings of the guitar was excruciating. The photo on the right is the finger this morning, July 6th. The crease in the tip of the finger isn’t from the cut; it’s an indentation from the guitar string. My finger has “survived damage”, and whether it’s “more beautiful” is not an issue. I’m simply grateful that I can play again.
I’ll edit this further when I find the photos of my face when I tripped over some bender board and required four stitches in my forehead. And again when I tripped trying to pick up a table and landed, once again, on my face. I’m on a first name basis with the doctors at Kaiser’s ER. They gave me a punch card. After nine visits the tenth is on Kaiser. Hoping not to use it, just looking back at all of the above, trying to feel ennobled, beautiful, and valuable.