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The beauty of a few cracks
How dents, burn marks, and other imperfections can come to represent friendship, partnership, and personal growth.
You’re reading Meredith Goldstein’s Love Letters newsletter. Each week, Meredith shares tales of human connection, thoughts on public policy and relationships, and behind-the-scenes stories about the Love Letters column and podcast. Sign up to get the dispatch.
First thing’s first.
A24, the film company releasing “The Drama” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, is hosting a free preview screening of the Boston-set film on Sunday in Somerville.
They have offered Love Letters a small pack of tickets to the event.
Sadly, they have not offered me quality time with Robert Pattinson, which is probably for the best. (Don’t meet your heroes, celebrity crushes, etc.)
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If you would like to win a pair of tickets to the Sunday evening screening, enter by sending a question to Love Letters between now and 11 a.m. on Friday, March 27.
Use this form for your question (you can check a box to enter the contest). We’ll pick winners and notify them by Friday evening.
Speaking of Pattinson, did you read the recent Love Letters question from a person who only falls for men she can’t have, including celebrities? One commenter named LEFTYLUCY7 responded, “I get it, I am still holding out hope for Tom Selleck!”
You can send your own anonymous question to the column by clicking this box.
What’s your damage?
Now for some thoughts on cracks.
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There are two weird gashes in the molding of the doorframe near my kitchen table. They remind me of a weird vampire bite.
My friend winces when he looks at them; I can see it when he visits.
He feels bad because he and his family are responsible for the damage.
The tale goes like this: when I moved into my place in 2019, I didn’t have a kitchen table. My friend’s dad, who lives nearby, spotted a beautiful kitchen table at an antique shop and decided to buy it for me. So nice.
He showed up with the massive wooden table – it was very heavy – and as he was moving it in, it barreled into the wall, leaving the two marks.
My friend now sees these dents as a mistake. He’s also a bit of a perfectionist, so I think his eyes are drawn to them.
But when I see them, I smile. They remind me of a moment when people in my life loved me so much they purchased and carried a massive, heavy table into my dining room.
Suddenly, with that damage, my new place felt like home.
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I bring this up because in the latest episode of the Love Letters podcast, a woman, Yowei Shaw, tells us about similar damage to her home that now stands as evidence of a relationship lesson learned.
Her story goes like this: Years ago, Yowei told her husband to vacate their home for the night so she could be alone with new, cool friends.
This had been happening a lot. For reasons we explore in the episode, she didn’t want these friends to see her with a husband. (In short, these friends were part of a queer community … and Yowei didn’t want to seem uncool by being partnered with a man.)
Without her husband around to help at this small dinner party, Yowei – who is not a good cook! – wound up using her hot pot upside down … and burned a hole into their dining table.
Yowei’s husband returned to see a big black spot just off center.
That spot means a lot now. To Yowei, it’s evidence of a time she was unkind to her husband. Why was she hiding him? How was that OK?
The circle on the table reminds her that when you hide the person you love, you wind up with damage – sometimes the literal kind.
You can hear the full, funny story of Yowei hiding her spouse by listening to the episode.
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I love that Yowei and her husband kept the table because so much positive change in their relationship happened after that night.
The table is such a symbol of growth that one of Yowei’s artistic friends made a mini table – with the exact burn mark – to commemorate the object.
(You can see the tiny table on top of the big one in that photo.)
I’ve read about the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi – that damage and imperfection is part of an object’s story – and of our personal histories.
With life and lessons, there is always decay. Can’t we celebrate that? I’d like to think it’s all beautiful.
That’s why I ask: If you have damage in your life that represents community, love, or lessons learned, can you send me a picture?
I’d love a gallery of cracks – the best kinds of scuffs and holes.
You can respond to this email with a story/photo or email me at [email protected].
Unless you request otherwise, I’ll only use stories anonymously.
King of hearts
I’ll leave you with a picture of the back of a Sting record, “Nothing Like the Sun,” from 1987, which I bought at a vinyl shop a few weeks ago.
The literary Sting, who named this particular album after a Shakespeare sonnet, explained his songs on the back of the album so we don’t have to guess too much about what the lyrics mean.
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He combined three track descriptions in one because they’re all songs with the word “heart” in the title. “Be Still My Beating Heart,” “Straight to My Heart,” and “Lazarus Heart.””
I liked what he wrote about these songs, and I hope you enjoy.
If the type is too small in this photo, Sting wrote,
“Why does tradition locate our emotional center at the heart and not somewhere in the brain? Why is the most common image in popular music the broken heart? I don’t know … I do know that ‘Lazarus Heart’ was a vivid nightmare that I wrote down and then fashioned into a song. A learned friend of mine informs me that it is the archetypal dream of the fisher king…can’t I do anything original?”
Six years after this album, Sting would release “Shape of My Heart,” one of my favorite songs ever.
– Meredith
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