22 Broken Plates and Found Beauty

Broken Plates and Found Beauty

Cael

Tokyo, Japan

T OKYO WAS A RIOT OF COLORS. W E STOOD ON THE SIDEWALK, JUST LOOKING up at the city, the buildings, the neon colors that decorated this special place in digital prismed light. Even in my numb state, I could see how captivating it was.

"It's incredible," Savannah murmured beside me. Her hand smoothed over my back, and I closed my eyes under her touch. I glanced down at her. The lights reflected in her eyes, a smile stretched on her face. Noticing me looking, she said, "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"Never," I said. Travis was on my other side, Dylan beside him; Lili and Jade were on Savannah's right side. We were all awestruck at the sights. We must have looked like the quintessential American tourists, as we all gaped at the buildings, mouth open.

"The home of manga," Travis said and rubbed his hands together. "I'm home !" Dylan laughed, and the two of them set off onto a conversation I couldn't follow. I hadn't read a manga in my life.

Savannah laughed at how animated they got, even more so when Lili screeched and said, "They have kitten cafes here. Kittens! "

"We need to go," Jade said. The two of them buried their heads in their cells, searching for the closest one. I caught Savannah looking at our new friends with such deep affection on her pretty face. She'd told me she was going to drink in every second of our time in Japan.

Because this was it. This was the end.

My heart twisted at the thought of leaving this group behind. I might not have been the most inspiring member of our mismatched group, but I'd come to care for them all—deeply. None more so than the petite blond beside me, who was leaning over and looking at a café location that Lili was showing her.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and held on as she talked to the girls. I hadn't known it was possible to miss someone before they'd actually left you, but that's where I was with Savannah. Each day spent here was one step closer to having to say goodbye to the girl who had become my world, my pillar holding me up. My only solace was that she was coming to New England in the fall.

How I'd cope without her until then was anyone's guess.

"Let's go," Savannah said, wrapping her arm around my waist. I raised my eyebrow. "What?" she asked playfully. "You don't want a cup of coffee while being jumped on by cats?"

A humored smirked pulled on my lip. It was so rare for me to smile lately, the act felt strange. Clearly, Savannah thought the same, as her gaze softened at my flicker of a smile.

As for Savannah, she was doing incredible. She was still introverted—that was just who she was. But there was a lightness to her now. A sense of peace radiated from her pores.

And she hadn't had an anxiety attack for weeks.

I knew Japan was special to her. She'd told me about Poppy's desire to see the cherry blossom trees here. She'd never made it.

Even I felt goose bumps break out along my skin when I realized we had arrived in Japan when most of the cherry blossoms were in bloom. Like I felt about Savannah, it felt like something bigger had conspired to have her here when the trees she associated with her sister were in full flower. We had seen some in Tokyo. But in a couple of days, we were to travel to Kyoto. That was where we would take part in the cherry blossom festivals.

I wanted to be excited. I wanted to feel at peace and feel stronger. But I didn't. I'd been talking to Leo a lot still. I knew I was behind the group now. I wouldn't be going home healed. I'd be going home raw . And there was a part of me that feared what I'd become without this group. Without Leo and Mia, and especially Savannah. Would I sink further into sadness, or would the anger I'd fought so hard to cast away come rushing back the minute I was faced with the triggers of home?

Leo and Mia had offered me more help. The truth was, reframing my thoughts about Cillian taking his own life was no longer my biggest issue. It was that, for a year now, I couldn't get the way he'd died from my mind. How I had witnessed it. Saw him. Held him and watched him die.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. When I felt tired, I saw it. I heard a car horn, a screech of tires, and I was thrust back there, Cillian in my arms, broken and fucking gone .

I recalled the conversation I'd had with Leo only a few days ago during our one-on-one …

"Cael, Mia and I have been talking, and we think you'd benefit from further help."

I didn't even react but for a small turn of my stomach. The truth was, I knew it. I felt it. I nodded my head. I would do whatever was needed. I wasn't even going to put up a fight. What I had witnessed was traumatic, and, I knew, it would take me longer to heal. If I wanted to be better for Savannah, for my parents, for me, I had to keep going.

"After this trip, we'll find you help at home." Leo paused, then said, "We think a residential program might be best. To really dig deep and help you through." Leo waited until I met his eyes. "Is that something you'd be willing to do?"

"Yes," I said. I pictured Savannah's face again. "I'll do whatever it takes."

"Come back to me," Savannah said, breaking through that memory. Her hands were on my face, in the center of Tokyo, thousands of people milling around us like they were water running around our stationary rock. I breathed and felt like crumbling. I was getting so tired of dealing with this grief.

It was destroying me.

As I looked at Savannah, I just knew I was going to destroy her too if I couldn't get a handle on this. I hadn't told her about the extra help back home. The truth was, I didn't want her to worry.

"I'm here," I rasped. I looked around us. Our friends had gone.

Savannah must have seen my confusion. "They've gone to the café." She took my hand in hers. "Come on; we'll go somewhere else."

I stopped her from pulling me away. "No," I said, forcing a tight smile. "We'll catch up with them." I took a breath that I prayed would give me strength. Savannah didn't look convinced. "We don't have long left. We want to spend more time with our friends."

"Only if you're sure," Savannah said after searching my face.

I put my arm around her shoulders and led her across the street. "I'm sure, Peaches. I can't think of anything more exciting than being attacked by kittens while I try to eat."

Savannah's short peal of laughter was like a ray of light piercing through my overcast sky. "I note your sarcasm, Mr. Woods, but I'm gonna let it slide this time. I want nothing more than to know how you handle twenty kittens all vying for your attention."

So we went to the kitten café, and I buried my sadness for another day. It was par for the course, these days.

"I am Aika and I'll be working with you today." Aika was a five-foot slim Japanese woman with black-and-gray hair tied back in a bun. She smiled a lot and exuded a sense of peace with every breath she took. She looked to be in her sixties and had a studio in the center of Tokyo.

We were in a large, vacant space with bright white walls. There was a table before us, stacked with plates. We all lined up in front of it, and Aika stood before us.

"Before you, you will see a stack of plates. I would ask you all to take one."

We all did as she asked, then stepped back to await further instruction. Savannah looked at me and shrugged. She had no idea what this was either. Aika looked like an artist, and her studio could be for art too. Though nothing but white bare walls greeted us.

"Take a look at your plates. What do you see?" Aika asked.

"It's a plate," Travis said, clearly as confused as the rest of us.

"Yes," Aika said. "And?"

"It's smooth?" Jade said nervously.

"And?" Aika asked.

"It's a perfect circle," Lili said.

Aika nodded one quick, sharp nod. "Cracks?"

"No cracks," Dylan said, searching his plate. I did the same. There were no cracks.

"It's as perfect as a plate can be," Savannah said shyly.

"It is," Aika said. Then, "I want you all to spread out and get some space." We did as she said. Aika nodded in approval, then said, "Now, lift your plates." I did as she said, taken aback when she added, "And drop them to the floor."

We all froze, unsure whether she was joking or not. We looked to one another to see if anyone was really going to do it. Was it a test? If it was, I had no idea what it would be for.

"Drop them," she said again, gesturing with the flick of the hand to do it.

"Break them?" Lili asked, voice unsure.

"Yes," Aika said bluntly. "Drop, smash, break—into pieces."

Dylan was the first to drop his plate to the ground, the dish smashing into five pieces on the ground at his feet.

"Good," Aika said, then turned to the rest of us. "Now you."

One by one, the sound of smashing plates swarmed the room. I dropped mine, my six-foot-four height giving it some speed. Mine shattered into nine pieces on the ground. I counted.

Savannah was staring at hers. It was broken into six larger parts. Aika walked up and down the line, past the broken plates. "Now, fit them back together."

I had no idea what was happening.

"How?" Dylan asked.

"Pick them up," Aika said. "Put the plates back together."

Doing what she asked, I bent down and picked up the pieces. Kneeling on the ground, I put them in the circle shape they had once been in. Chips of ceramic or whatever it was made of had disappeared from view, leaving small chunks of the plate that couldn't be restored. I put the broken pieces in the correct place, but the plate was broken. It was that simple.

"Pick the plate up as a whole," Aika said, and only silence greeted her.

"We can't," Travis said. "It'll fall apart."

"Ah," Aika said, hands behind her back and a knowing expression on her face. "Then we shall have to fix that," she said and walked to a closed door across the room. She opened it. "Collect your broken pieces and follow me."

"What is this?" Savannah whispered to me, and I shook my head. I had no idea.

I collected my plate pieces and followed the group into the next room. I was the last to walk through, but I immediately saw why they had all come to a stop. The room was filled floor to ceiling with pottery of all kinds. Pottery that was lined with gold and silver.

Aika walked to a round table with many seats. She gestured around her. "All broken pieces that have been repaired. Can be used again."

"But even with that," Dylan said, "they're not as they were before."

"Ah, now you understand," Aika said, and it only took me a few seconds to realize what she was doing. I looked down at the broken plate in my hand. The nine broken pieces, the sections where the chips had disappeared, leaving a rough edge. My throat immediately clogged with emotion.

The plate would never be the same again. It was broken, but—

" Now , I teach you how to make it functional again," Aika said, just casually ripping a shred off my soul. Savannah leaned into me, and I knew she understood why Aika was teaching us this lesson too.

As I looked around the group, I saw everyone had understood. These plates had been broken into pieces, but we were going to take something irreparably damaged, and make it work again.

We were the broken plates.

"Please, sit," Aika said, and when we did, she handed out paintbrushes and a gold mixture. Once she had given us our materials, she sat down and took out a broken plate that she must have stored for this moment.

We watched her with held breaths. We knew this class was not just to learn a new skill. We all felt it was for something more. Something for us all, for our healing, hearts and souls.

Aika took the two largest pieces of the plate and coated one side with the gold liquid. "This is the Japanese art of kintsugi," she said, never taking her eyes off what she was doing. "I am using a gold lacquer like a glue to repair the plate. To put the broken pieces of the plate back together."

Aika pushed the pieces together, the two broken segments of the plate now fixed together, a stunning gold line tracking down where the break previously was. "This art form is the physical manifestation of the principle of wabi-sabi . Wabi-sabi teaches us to embrace life's imperfections, its impermanence and incompleteness."

"Like Sakura, the cherry blossom trees," Savannah whispered, emotion thickening her voice.

"Yes. Like sakura," Aika said. She then nodded to our broken plates and our tools. "Please, begin. Follow what I am doing."

My hand was shaking when I reached for my paintbrush. Savannah didn't move for a few minutes, eyes closed and breathing. I placed my hand on her thigh. Her eyes fluttered open. "You okay?" I asked quietly.

"Yes," she said. She gave me a watery smile. "I just … needed a few minutes." Savannah reached for the paintbrush and began reconstructing her plate.

There was total silence as we all worked. With every piece I glued back together, flashes of the past year came to mind. About the catatonic state I was in after Cillian died. About the anger that had taken root and spread like a plague throughout my body until it had consumed me. I recalled the first time I had shunned my parents, screaming at them to leave me alone. About when I had walked out of my teams' hockey rink and never looked back, refusing to start Harvard in the fall. When I had thrown my skates in the pond shed and slammed the door. When I had taken Cillian's hockey stick and smashed it to smithereens on the frozen pond we loved so much.

Each of them was a crack in my soul.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

They were the physical manifestation of my heart breaking, my soul shattering into a thousand broken pieces. I never believed that I could be put back together.

Until this trip.

Until I fell in love with the most incredible girl who made me dare to hope again.

Were they my gold lacquer? Was this what was happening to my broken spirit? Was this trip, these new friendships, Leo and Mia's guidance, and falling deeply in love with my girl, my kintsugi? Could I— we all —be somehow put back together? Or was I broken all over again since the exposure therapy? Had my pieces been refractured? Did I have to scramble to find them again? Or were they smashed into too many pieces that it was unsavable? That was my biggest fear. That it was too far gone to be healed.

"Are you struggling?" Aika asked me. My hands were suspended in the air and I realized I had been sitting still, lost in my head. Then I heard her question filter into my ears. Was I struggling?

Too much.

Swallowing, I met Aika's searching gaze. "Is it …" I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable at asking this question out loud. But I had to know. "Are there any plates that are too broken to be repaired? Any … hopeless cases?"

The room was silent as my question thickened the air. I felt Savannah's hand land on my knee in support. But I never took my eyes off Aika. My breath was held as I waited for her answer.

"No," Aika said, matter-of-fact. "The shattered pieces may take longer to find, and they certainly would take longer to fix back together. But any broken plate can be mended with time and the sheer tenacity to do it."

The relief I felt from her answer almost knocked me off my chair. I could feel Aika watching me closer. When I looked up and met her eyes again, she nodded her head once, like she could see into my soul. That curt nod was in encouragement. I knew she understood why I had really asked that question. Everyone around this table did.

"Okay, baby?" Savannah asked, her whispered voice shaking with sadness. Sadness for me.

"I'm okay," I said and gave her hand a squeeze, then carried on, ignoring everyone else's heavy focus on me.

Lost to the hours it took to fix the plate, I sat back when the final piece had been fixed back into place. As I looked down upon my lacquered plate, I lost my breath.

It was fixed. It wasn't as it was before, but it was put back together. It was something new. But it was a plate again.

"What do we see now when we look at our plates?" Aika asked, her voice softer now, gentler, like she knew we were all as fragile as the plates we'd just spent our day rebuilding. The lacquer would take time to dry. To make it as strong as it was before.

"It's beautiful," Savannah said, staring down at her plate. She blinked away tears from her eyes and met Aika's gaze. "I think it's even more beautiful than it was before."

"Ah," Aika said. "This is true." She gestured to all our plates. "A lesson then," she said and smiled. "That that which is broken, once repaired, can be more beautiful than it was before."

Chills tracked down my spine and spread out over my body. I reached out and took Savannah's hand. Her fingers were trembling, and when I looked up, tears were trickling down her cheeks, like they were her own salty tracks of lacquer. I stared, captivated by my girl. She had been beautiful when we'd met. When she was broken into thousands of pieces. But now, when this trip and therapy had gradually glued her back together with golden lacquer, she was more beautiful than ever.

I knew my own pieces were still broken. Not all lacquered back together … yet . But as I looked down at my plate, I knew I could be. Someday. I would never be the same after losing Cillian—none of us were after losing our loved ones. You couldn't lose someone you loved so much and ever return to the person you were before.

Loss changed you.

But you could heal . You could repair your fractured spirit with golden lacquer and hold on to life . That life wouldn't look the same ever again. But it didn't mean that it wouldn't be worthwhile. That it wouldn't be beautiful. Perhaps loss taught a person to love life more . Because you understood what it was like to lose that life. You wouldn't take it for granted anymore.

I knew I wasn't there yet. But if I kept going. If I kept trying , kept repairing my broken pieces, perhaps I could be.

A hand landed on my shoulder. Aika stood beside me. "I want to give you all a kit to take with you. For you to practice at home." She smiled, and her brown eyes were filled with kindness. "For when you feel life cannot be beautiful again."

"Thank you," I whispered and clutched on to that gifted kintsugi kit like it was my lifeline. Like if I just held on tight enough, my veins would run with golden lacquer, enter my arteries and repair my broken heart.

I heard Aika's voice echo in my head … "Wabi-sabi teaches us to embrace life's imperfections, its impermanence and incompleteness."

Nothing lasts forever. Life, happiness … even pain.

But hope did. If being around Savannah had taught me anything, it was that hope always hovered nearby. And if it was lost, it could be found again.

Savannah laid her head on my shoulder and just stared at her plate. I stared down at my own, the world disappearing around us. I had to find a way to repair my broken pieces. I kissed Savannah's hair, smelled her cherry and almond scent. I wanted a life with this girl. I wanted to find happiness with her too.

I just wanted her , in every way.

The golden lacquer glimmered in the overhead lights. Maybe Savannah's heart and mine had been broken by the loss of our siblings. But when we began to repair them, maybe we melded them back together to create our two hearts as one.

We were stronger that way. Beating in unison.

And I was sure they were more beautiful than they had ever been on their own.