The shattering began with a phone call from a friend. She shared one of her own sorrows with me. Hearing the heaviness in her voice, feeling the weight she carried, felt as if each word were a stone placed into the invisible backpack she carried every day. I wanted to do something, to help her — and myself — release these feelings, to transform them into something bearable. So, we decided to meet at the studio, where we’d smash plates and glasses, breaking things only to piece them back together, letting me turn shards of sorrow into a mosaic.
I want to make something whole from this shattered sorrow, to preserve this time, to hold it in place — because it’s something that shouldn’t and can’t be forgotten or forgiven.
It felt both freeing and strangely hard, allowing myself to break something that someone else had once created. Just yesterday, our sorrow had been contained in those beautiful ceramic pieces we’d assembled for this session. I’d never broken anything on purpose before, but I have to admit I’d always wanted to. Breaking things like this felt therapeutic, as if this destruction released something raw and untamed inside. Afterwards, it somehow became easier to breathe.
I watched my friends, one by one, smash glasses and vases, and as we shattered them, something changed within us all. As we threw our sorrow to the floor, we broke ourselves open too, piece by piece, like those shards scattering around us. It felt as if we were those glasses, splintered here in the winter of 2022. Every time we hear the latest news, it’s like we’re shattered all over again. We lay there on the floor, broken, realizing we can’t go back to who we were, to the lives we once had, the people we once were, the places we knew. We can only transform into something else, with new forms, new functions. And this process of piecing ourselves into something new — it’s a sad beauty. “It’s a sad and beautiful world,” reads the writing on my ffiend’s T‑shirt, a quote from her favorite director, Jim Jarmusch.
Maybe transforming pain into art is a kind of cure. It’s a way to blend sorrow and beauty, to accept it all without losing ourselves.
Soon, I’ll arrange these mosaics from our sorrow, and perhaps from others’ sorrows too, with the words from Dashka’s T‑shirt as their title. Because nothing says it better.
It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. 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It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. 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It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world. It’s a sad and beautiful world.
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