Dear Friends, 

It’s been a year since my horrible mud season event, and I feel grateful every day for life, for friends, for everything. I don’t plan to mark the anniversary every year, but rather the birthday of the young man who was the first to rescue me.  

But this year, browsing in a thrift shop, a lumpy homemade maple basket seemed to call to me. 

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 “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. “ 

That brokenness made me consider my brokenness and my journey toward wholeness and all the people who loved me and helped me in the past year. I am grateful. 

When I lived in Japan, I learned about the Japanese art of Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery pieces with gold. What a rich metaphor: not disguising the breakage, but rather allowing it to shine forth, and become honored as part of the whole. 

(see photo)

How could I practice Kintsugi using the cracked basket? My friend Heidi Broner, an artist, helped me to choose a color. I thought of the newest stained-glass window at my church, a deep cobalt blue that is especially compelling when the sun shines through it. In the heavens, above the dove, little gold stars in the heavens seem to twinkle sometimes. During this past year, I have spent time alone admiring the work. 

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 So, on the one-year anniversary of the time when my life could have ended, my friend and I sat at the kitchen table and mixed just the right blue, which I painted along the cracks, not trying for straight lines but considering the twists and turns we all experience in life. Heidi helped with the stars. 

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Isn’t it beautiful? It will always have a valued place in our home. When I think of this past year, beyond my challenges of body, mind, and spirit, I think of all of you --surrounding me with love. Thank you. 

Linda