ON REPAIR
Broken bracelets, minor freak outs, and tending to the small things when the big things are out of our control.
A while back, I drove to the local jewelry store to see if they could fix my bracelets. I’d been carrying the broken chains around in my purse for months, forgetting. Who has time for such small things?
While I waited, another customer was talking to the man behind the counter. Her daughter was marrying a captain in the navy. “I’m happy for her,” she said, “as long as she knows what she’s signing up for!”
I caught my reflection in the glass. The light jumped from birth stones to crucifixes to engagement rings, all sorts of bright things that mark a life, and I thought: do we ever really know what we’re signing up for?
I recalled all the things that had happened to me since my bracelets broke — namely, losing a breast, getting a new one — and I felt tender. The longer I waited, the more I started to panic. What if I can’t afford to fix my bracelets? What if I thought the chains were real gold but they’re actually not? Why do bad things keep happening? Who cares about bracelets when there’s so much suffering in the world!
Just then, the man behind the counter asked how he could help me. I opened my hand to show him the tangled bracelets. For some reason, it reminded me of when my kids want to show me something they’ve found, usually something gross, like a sooty old bottle cap, or a dirty piece of string. They unfurl their hand slowly, suddenly unsure if what they’ve found is a treasure or something they never should have picked up in the first place.
“These are beautiful,” the jeweler said, examining my bracelets under a magnifying glass. I sighed a breath of relief. “Won’t cost much, ready by next week.”
He handed me a ticket, and I thanked him. As I turned to go, I locked eyes with the other customer, the mother. We stood there among the diamonds, the rubies, the shiny chains. I thought about her daughter getting married, starting her life. How it will be what it is, how things will happen, some good, some hard. And that if she breaks along the way, I hope she’ll know to go find that ticket and start again.
A MEDITATION
May we tend to the broken things. May we remember that nothing is beyond repair.
Feel free to share a time you took care of something small, despite it all…I love hearing your stories, too.
Thanks for reading my tiny tales. Sending love to you, especially this god awful week in our world. Keep going.
xx Alexa
PS. Not to be a broken record, but here’s my favorite Sharon Salzberg Lovingkindness meditation again…I’ve been leaning on this hard lately, and maybe it will help you, too. (Louder for the ones in the back! May all beings be safe, happy, healthy, and FREE.)
This took my breath away. Just lovely. You’ve made me think, yes, the importance of taking time to repair little things despite of it all, it’s a tender thing to do and it is to be attentive. It’s made me think how I’d like to repair a buckle on a pair of shoes I have that I’ve been wanting to wear or to tidy that little space that seems unimportant but I k ie it will be nice cleaned up. Before my mum died, she was very determined to have jewellery repaired. She said I don’t want to pass on something broken. It was a beautiful final gesture of love. Other pieces beyond repair she had melted down and turned into something else. A lovely necklace for me. She died just days before it was finished. The jeweller called to say the jewellery was ready. She had had a ring reset too and now I can’t remember if she did see that or not but she had put it all in motion. So caring x
I've always been the type to take extra care of my things. I still have papers saved from high school, receipts from 2010, and a plethora of random items collected over the years. If any one of these items were broken, no matter how small, you best believe I would do my best to repair it.
It is not about the size of the item I found, but rather the memories the item shares. When I do my best to repair them, it's to prove (either to myself, or the item, not sure yet), that I do cherish the memories.
Whether a music box, outdated technology, or an article of clothing, I repair to save not just the item, but the period of my life in which I found happiness in the item, for days when I need to feel that happiness again.