Broken and Non-broken Things

In any language, we know what they are

These are non-broken things in and around the birthplace of the Renaissance.

I have broken things. I don’t mean broken as a verb. I don’t mean I, personally, have broken things.

Oh, but I have. I have (as a verb) broken marriages. I have (as a verb) broken promises. I have (as a verb) broken hearts. But I have had my heart broken too. This is a life. The breaking of hearts. The breaking open of hearts, however, is a beautiful thing.

But back to broken things. I mean broken as an adjective describing things. The broken things in my life right now are a list written down on notepaper in English. But the person who is going to fix the broken things is Claudio and he doesn’t read English or speak English or understand English, so he also has a list written down on notepaper but in Italian. He made his list while I spent two hours with him yesterday trying to explain my list to him, walking around the house with the English list. But then my brain broke. I broke my brain straining to say the English things in Italian. My whole entire body was yelling at me! Stop this! I am tired! I can’t think about how to say “toilet paper holder” in Italian for one more minute! I can only say “toilet paper holder” in English. And to make you stop, my brain said, “I am going to shut down now. No more. Stop this nonsense. Literally, what is coming out of your mouth is non-sense. So stop it. Shutting down. 50% down. 25% down. Off. Say goodbye to Claudio and go have a glass of wine with Lee.”    

Goodbye Claudio. I will see you on Friday. Ci vediamo venerdi. “That’s it,” my brain said. “You got a freebie. No more for today.”

This is what happened with the broken things in our house like window screens, doorknobs, a door that wouldn’t stay shut, a piece of shutter hardware and the hooks and the toilet paper holder that falls off the wall. This is what happened with my broken brain.

I also have non-broken things, working perfectly well things and beautiful things. Like this little poodle pup wrapped up here on the chaise with me curled against my leg. And the man in the kitchen who is my husband making noises that are the sounds of cleaning. He’s cleaning. He’s cleaning the refrigerator taking out one level of shelves at a time He is simply a monster cleaner here at the villa. It is his new work. It is valuable and meaningful and satisfying and makes us realize we are really weird in the way we mostly just value work that has economic value. We especially value people who do work with high economic value.

He was a teacher in a private school, so his work never had high economic value. But the memories of those children arriving on the first day of first grade, staying with those same children for five years because that is the way the school did it, are now in a vault in his heart and once in a while he opens the vault and thinks about one or two of those children and where they are today at 36 and 37 years old and he feels very rich, indeed. This is an example of a heart that was broken open by the toothless smiles of first graders and made for a very high return on investment.

 James Hillman says the following (by way of the engaging

jon wilson

) and I think he is right:

So there isn't just one special task, like a calling or vocation. Vocation is a very inflating spiritual idea. One to one. God to me. Notice how our idea of Renaissance man is a polytheistic fantasy. He does all kinds of things. 

You do know this is mind-blowing. This requires that I rethink, revalue everything in my past including my great-grandmother Lulu who made the most exquisite quilts and my grandmother, Myrtle, who grew beautiful, nourishing food and laid it on the table for us so we would be happy and grow.

I thought I had to hava a calling and I had to be paid for it. Now, at 71, I might have to reconsider this. Maybe making a bed, which I can enjoy and find great satisfaction, might be my work, too. And making a dinner for someone. And walking with the dogs. And being with a friend. And making things with my hands – all the sewing I did for half a lifetime. All of this work. All of this is beautiful. My capacity to work is non-broken. My work will never be broken. But now the concept that we have one calling and there is something wrong if you haven’t found it is broken.

Other non-broken things are all around me. All but one piece of my furniture traveled from Charleston, across the Atlantic to the port of Livorno, Italy and through the Tuscan countryside to our villa and arrived non-broken. The one piece that is broken is an antique metal bed and the plumbers who fix anything and everything are coming tomorrow with their flame-throwing welding kit to fix it. So it will no longer be broken. I have broken shower, but they can fix that too. I have a broken refrigerator and someone else has to fix that. But it keeps the food cold so I’m calling it non-broken.

My marriage is non- broken. It is beautiful. Even though we bicker more here in Italy, I know it is because stress slides up into our throats when we don’t know what the fuck we are saying or hearing in Italian or are lost and then, the stress leaks out as bickering words. But that’s all. Just a leak. Non-broken leak.

The other non-broken things are these: the soft sky here in Tuscany. A cloudy day is a non-broken thing. It is like being wrapped in a faded blanket made of ancient threads of beauty.  The Vinci valley is non-broken. It is greens like velvet, silk, and pine covering the dips and rises crossed by a rolling stream. The tempo of life is non-broken. I can’t remember the day when I wake up. At first I thought this was a broken thing. Now I know it is definitely non-broken. Lunch or pranzo is long and shared. Apertivo is a verb. Let’s apertivo. It is non-broken. The owl who lives in the tree in the garden is non-broken, hooting to announce the day, the early bird, the horn heralding the sun to to rise again. Non-broken.

But if you are feeling broken, that is okay. We are human. Life is broken and non-broken. And, that is non-broken in its own way.