everything that was broken

fissures, fractures and finding more

Well, friends, we’ve made it to March, and yet, somehow, the world feels no less weary. A coup compounded by an endless Rochester winter—layer upon layer of ice sandwiched between snow, making each step treacherous, ready to bring you down—which feels like an apt metaphor for how I cautiously go about the day, either avoiding the news entirely or holding my head in despair. We’ve been offered a few brief thaws, but it’s certainly not Spring. Last week, as John and I chipped away at one icy layer after another, new fraught fractures were exposed.

Monday, my mother slipped on the sidewalk, breaking four fingers.

Tuesday, it was determined that she required surgery. No surprise.

Wednesday, it was my turn to lose my footing on black ice at the bottom of our driveway while taking out the recycling, barely keeping myself aloft, although I’m not going to lie—the dismount was a solid 10. #WhyIPracticeYoga

And so, once again, thaw(s) or not, I’ve reverted to walking Violet and Gertie up at Cobbs Hill Reservoir. Together, we make endless circles around the holding tank, requiring no more attention than to put one foot in front of the other, to trust the path, and notice the fissures in the icy waters, splitting what was once a solid surface into jagged splinters, rubbing against one another before once again drifting apart.

I couldn’t help but to stop and admire how the floating icebergs bobbed and bumped as their own pas de deux, changing colors as they reflected the cold, blue light in the space between the earth and sky. The pattern play pulled me back to so many summers on Monhegan, searching for sea glass between the stones on the edge of Swim Beach. The thing I love about sea glass is how its beauty is derived from brokenness. Sharp shards polished with patience and the process of time. It’s an intuitive trusting: from what you throw into the water's healing, there will be unimaginable rewards. Over the years, I’ve filled many a bowl with the bounty of these soothing, smooth shapes. Every summer, I return to fill my pockets, carrying my buried treasure back to Rochester as comfort. My gifts from the sea.

A while back, Gertie and Violet broke one of these bowls, scattering glass and ceramic fragments everywhere. As I carefully picked up the pieces of the celadon bowl, one of the last pieces of pottery my ex-mother-in-law had wheel-thrown before she passed, I made myself a promise that somehow I would attempt to make what was broken again whole. The best option to consider was the Japanese art of Kintsugi, and while I had little experience with the process, I did my best to patch the broken pieces back together like a puzzle etched in gold.

As a technique, Kintsugi is based upon the idea that by embracing our flaws and imperfections, we can make something stronger, more beautiful, and perhaps even more cherished than what was there before. I held these ideals in mind as I carefully brushed each edge with gold-flecked epoxy, mending the vessel as best I could. As the bowl slowly came together piece by piece, I became more aware of its many wobbles and assymetries, and realized it was never perfect to begin with, but what made it so was that Barbara had shaped the bowl with her two hands then given it to me as a gift. A gift I didn’t ask for, a gift I can’t give back, but through the process of repair, made and remade together, I can receive it as more.

When I consider the power of brokenness, I’m not speaking of the intentional breaking of things for personal gain, as we are currently witnessing in Washington, although that does keep me up at night. Instead, I return to the Tantric traditions¹ of my yoga practice, reminding me to experience the world as endless abundance, and even seeming brokenness offers us the opportunity to become more discerning. Brokenness, like yoga, can be an invitation to question, to ask why something is being presented as it is, to consider learning and knowledge as a process rather than something fixed in time, and then to trust that there will be another chance tomorrow to continue the conversation. This is why I write; this is why I return to my mat—to receive myself through the practice of making—to trust that my scars, my brokenness, are also my marks of distinction. To know that it is a gift to repeat the process, to wake up and get to do it again.

We can’t help but create something through our actions. Indeed, even inaction is a form of action, so the question becomes, what do you wish to make? Do you wish to be guided by principles of chaos or care? Giving or greed?

Rather than being bound to the world's brokenness as lack, how can we experience the extra missing broken piece as an invitation and another chance to rise and find our more? Because sometimes, what feels fractured can only be understood in hindsight. And sometimes, anguish fully felt is the first step towards healing. Bones fuse together. Ice melts to become water. A bowl can be stitched back together with golden seams.

Everything that was broken has forgotten its brokenness. Every day has something in it whose name is Forever.²

thanks for reading,

xosew

PS

registration for Braiding Sweetgrass: Breathing Stories is open!

If you’ve ever dreamed of collecting sea glass on Monhegan, don’t miss out on early-bird pricing.

join me on retreat … . ..

Braiding Sweetgrass: Breathing Stories

September 17-21, 2025 | Monhegan, ME

For the fifth year, I invite you to join me for an intimate retreat on Monhegan. Our program is an embodied book group, journeying and journaling through the wisdom and words of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s memoir Braiding Sweetgrass with the magic of Monhegan. I’m thrilled to consider the possible ways Kimmerer’s storytelling will become the guide to writing our own. Together, we will write through the island's topography, the geography of our senses, and our storied experiences. There will be ample time to search for sea glass and hike the trails through Cathedral Woods to the rocky shores of Pebble Beach.

Through writing, ritual, and restorative yoga, we will meditate, celebrate, and honor the variations of our authentic voices, as can only happen when you find yourself on this artist's island 10 miles out to sea.

Braiding Sweetgrass is limited to eight participants ~ I hope you will join me this year!

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION CONTINUES UNTIL MARCH 15!

lingering line…..

what are you whispering? sorrow, sorrow. joy, joy. woven together, like reeds in moonlight. virginia woolf

Thanks for being here. I’m grateful for your readership. Before you go, would you click the ♥️ or share this post with a friend? You may also restack, leave a comment, or reply via email because it helps others find this newsletter. If you want to see a little more of my island time you can follow me on Instagram, too.

1. Many thanks to Christina Sell and Douglas Brooks for a powerful weekend of asana and philosophy and to Vanessa and Kass for hosting such an extraordinary weekend at Tru Yoga, February 21-23, 2025.

2. This essay was inspired in part by Mary Oliver’s poem, Everything That Was Broken

Everything that was broken has forgotten its brokenness. I live
now in a sky-house, through every
window the sun. Also your presence.
Our touching, our stories. Earthy 
and holy both. How can this be, but it is. Every day has something in
it whose name is Forever.