Writing. Kintsugi. My Nana’s hands.

I wrote with both hands in a writing class a few years ago. We wrote using our right (dominant, for me) and our left (non-dominant) hands. I started the exercise with pen and paper and journal and then moved to the computer as the conversation between my brain’s right and left side took off. Tenderness moves between our heads, our hearts, and our hands. Imagination breathes in and out, in and out, in and out. When we use our hands, we channel magic.

I sat down at a table and was back in my hands. I am curious about Kintsugi. I wanted to practice it to repair cherished plates gifted to me during my childhood that had been broken during moves and years. In Kintsugi, we turn our brokenness into beauty by placing it all back together with gold. The process goes like this: You match broken pieces with their plate, carefully fitting them together. (In the case of my plates, bunnies matched with bunnies, kittens matched with kittens, butterflies matched with butterflies, for example.) You gently mix gold and epoxy. You paint the golden epoxy onto the broken surface of the plate. Hold the broken edge until the pieces stick together and dry more easily. Mix more epoxy quickly, but not too quickly, and proceed before the epoxy dries. I repeated this process for each of the 5 plates. I waited two days and took the final step — painting over the cracks with gold one more time. I was in my hands. Starting a project that had been on my heart for years. Fitting the pieces of it all together in delicate imperfection. Discovering just the right amount of epoxy needed to make it work. Holding pieces together. Waiting and repeating that again and again and again. My hands created something beautiful.

I was holding my Nana’s hands when she passed away. I am not sure how long I held her hands. Maybe forever. Maybe part of me still holds her hands. A final touch is intimate. There is a pace to letting go: warmth holds close, silence muffles tears and machines, and peace welcomes an overwhelming comfort. In this moment, life breathes and quiets all the noise. Nothing else matters. All else fades, and our story, truth, and reason for being stand in stark relief. Something sacred opens. I have never been present at birth, but I imagine the otherworldliness and bigger-than-lifeness of that experience feel similar. Life arriving. Life leaving. A life inhaling. A life exhaling. The mystery of it all feels miraculous.

Sacred starts in our hands. Answering questions. Sacred. Putting pieces back together. Sacred. Surrounding those we love with peace and comfort. Sacred. Tenderness. Sacred. Language, art, and family. Sacred. Our hands, both the left and the right. Sacred. Let the sacred create. Let the sacred build. Let the sacred be our source. Breath-by-breath. Thought-by-thought. Word-by word. Hand-by-hand.

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