Pictured above is one of just a couple original windows in our house, which was built in 1929. When we remodeled our house almost a decade ago, we decided to keep the window, even though one of the panes is cracked through the corner, letting winter drafts into the kitchen, and even though it can’t really be replaced without breaking the whole thing apart.
Today was a very quiet, calm day—everyone kept to themselves and there was kind of a hush over the house. I spent time this afternoon thinking about the gray whale that washed up on Manitou Beach yesterday, which made me feel a little bit somber and in need of some music: Brandi and Dave. The song Broken Things came on—a song I’ve heard at least a hundred times, but as so often happens with Dave songs, the lyrics spoke to me all of a sudden, when I wasn’t really even paying attention.
“Stars shine down from the black And we're picking though this broken glass Well how could we know that our lives Would be so full of beautifully broken things.”
Garner, who turns 13 next month, made the little pot pictured below when he was a kindergartener at Blakely. This pot, along with the others made by my three kids over the years (I’ve kept them all) live in a row on the window sill, right next to a small collection of sleek, perfectly crafted glassy baby candle holders—an accidental and lovely juxtaposition.
The pot’s handle broke off long ago and for years I’ve been meaning to repair it. But today, thinking about all that’s broken right now—broken but still so loved and still so worth saving in spite of its brokenness—I walked over to the window and picked up the tiny treasure Garner made. I knew it would never be exactly the same, even once I glued it back together, but still I fixed that beautiful-to-me, broken thing, and set it back in its spot near the old window pane, cracked forever across its corner.
Today, the beauty of broken things is my joy. #joyinplace
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