As I walked into the living room this morning, I found the broken vase spread over the floor. How did this happen? Had someone broken into my house? Was that someone still here?
I realize, after a minute of standing there, that the house is, in fact, empty. No one is here besiddes me. Last night's storm, which had raged, while we slept, must have broken open the windows and knocked the vase over. Now the curtains are flailing lightly in the wind, the air fresh after the rain, and the early morning sun warming my feet as I stand over the shattered pieces spread across the room like a puzzle swept off the table. Like some wicked spirit had cast it down in an angry fit. Now the vase is in a thousand pieces, and I wonder if it is lost or if it can still be mended.
Moving slowly, to avoid stepping on the pieces, I start to pick up each piece and bring them to the table, one by one.
Sitting down, I look over the disaster. Strangely transformed, each little bit of porcelain has morphed into a new kind of broken beauty before my eyes.
A need to put it back together, even if it might never be the same, comes over me.
I know the pattern well, after all, the vase has been sitting there on the window sill for quite some time, and I have been admiring the intricate design and the way the sun made it transparent, at a certain time of day, almost every day since it was given to me. Then my mind goes to work, recalling where each flower, each color, and little insect is to be placed. No rush.
A particular black wild orchid that I had been fond of reappears, and I am happy to see the little dark flower. Little lines are tracing a fine pattern on top of the surface.
For a while, I sit there staring at the vase. The overlapping realities of still remembering the old vase whole, and this, the newer version, is puzzling. Its broken beauty still somehow feels familiar. It’s good.
Then I look around for another place to put the vase. It has to be somewhere where the vase is safe from the window and the havoc of the elements.
By the window, I look out at the now calmed ocean that surrounds my island. So often, this view has soothed my thoughts and restored my need for Zen. What had once seemed a little pool of sadness is now an inviting sea.
Warmed by the sun, I wonder about the attachment to the vase and this island. Why do we put such significance in certain things?