In Japan there’s an art of repairing broken objects, called kintsukori. My friend Emily McDowell explains it beautifully here:
So last night Hailey dropped one of the china plates from our wedding and there aren’t many left so I thought we could fix the plate kintsukori-style but I don’t have any extra melted gold so instead I used a glue stick and some gold puffy paint made for t-shirts and turns out it looks like shit.
But I was still really proud of it so I showed it to Victor and he was like, “It’s not even lined up correctly. And it’s still sticky” and I was like, “Yeah. I’m not a professional ceramacist” and he pointed out that “ceramacist” isn’t a real word, but I wouldn’t know because I just said I’m not one, Victor. Then he was like, “Why are there scraps of paper towel glued to the back of it?” and I was like, “So that I wouldn’t get puffy paint all over the bathroom. YOU’RE WELCOME” and he was like, “WHY WERE YOU DOING CRAFTS IN THE BATHROOM?” but honestly I think he was just upset because he was bleeding. Did I mention he was bleeding? Because apparently I handed him “a broken plate full of sharp, jagged edges.”
And then I got mad because he didn’t appreciate my art and he was bleeding on it, and then he was like, “Maybe you should drop it again” and so I huffed out of his office and I accidentally stepped on Ferris Mewler and when he meowed angrily at me it scared me and I did drop the plate but it totally didn’t break BECAUSE I FIXED IT SO GOOD. And Victor was like, “What is happening out there?” and I yelled, “THE CAT IS UPSET BECAUSE HE THINKS WE’RE GETTING A DIVORCE, AND NOW THIS PLATE IS IMMORTAL” and then Victor decided to lock his office door for the rest of the day.
