Kintsugi

Golden Repair

Hugh is on the phone to me. I’m in the particular summer heat that only London can provide. It’s full of blossom. Like a bad dream for all those with hay fever.

As he speaks, weaving through a series of, what seems to me, unconnected stories - I can imagine him in those ridiculous short rugby shorts he has. Only British Public School enables one to continue wearing such garments into your late 30s. I have the same ones, I had them when I played rugby at 15. Now I only wear them when I’m in the recording studio with him. There they feel right.

I’m explaining my frustration. On Godfrey street, walking to the office on a Saturday. My frustration that our music isn’t better, and I don’t have a good lead singer anymore. He starts on one of these stories.

“Do I know about the Japanese concept of Kintsugi?”

I didn’t.

The concept is that when pottery is broken, it can be repaired with golden glue. In the process, making the destruction of the pottery, more beautiful in its reincarnated form.

I’m reminded about this moment with a friend who I have written music with for over 15 years. He has come to visit me in Boston. In my new life - watching on, as it it’s the dress rehearsal for the opening night.

Is the ‘Charles’ or should I say ‘Charlie’ show a true representation of the script.

We listen to songs that we wrote together, exploring memories triggered by the sound. “It’s written in the stars, gilded in our scars”. I wrote that lyric when I was 15. I’m 30 now. Pretty cheesy. But there is some truth in it.

There is a beauty, like there is in the night sky, in the scars that we have borne. Especially if we have healed them through the golden elixir of friendship.

I like writing on my skin.

I view these markers as scars of my past, but I have re-framed those scars in beauty.

At least to me, a tattoo is like the golden glue used for Kintsugi.

Everyday I see them in the mirror.

On a body that I have hated most of my life, and still often do, but they give me reason for a smile.

My body is now my canvas, rather than a burden that I have been saddled with.

I’ve re-framed the narrative, which for me gives me a sense of control, of liberation, and of creative expression.

I can write the story that I want on it. Of who I think I am. Not the chubby boy that was teased every day, nervous to take his shirt off before swimming lessons.

Scars can be powerful tools.

Scars can be beautiful.

You may not be able to control the cut, but you are the one who heals.

You can choose standard super-glue or you can choose a golden one.

See beauty in the cracks.