Sometimes it feels to me like I am something that has been broken apart and I am trying my hardest to put the millions of little pieces back together the way they belong. Problem is, there is no picture to follow, the edges are rough instead of straight and tidy and the colours kind of blend together. There is nothing solid to use to guide the placement of the pieces. Some people would be ecstatic - just put the pieces wherever you want and make something totally new! However, what if the pieces don't fit where you think they should go? What if there are some missing or damaged and you don't know it yet? It is only by painstakingly putting the pieces back together one by one that you start to see the shapes and outlines of the pictures. It is only by fleshing out sections and images that you start to see the patterns and where they belong in relation to each other. Sometimes they fit together smoothly, sometimes there are gaps, but you don't know how big the gaps are until you start to find the edges of them again and make them smaller, bit by bit.
There are some that complain it is taking too long. Shouldn't you know by now what the picture is supposed to look like? Shouldn't you have more done? You think you know the answers to their questions and their impatience, but that very next piece changes what you think you knew and you are left wondering again.
The other problem is that you are traveling over a broken road as you are trying to place these pieces back together. The journey is not smooth. Every time you manage to fit a piece into place, the bump in the road makes you pray that it didn't get knocked back out of place and you have to find it again. Sometimes, it stays put and you can move on to the next section; sometimes it moves and changes the image; sometimes it falls out altogether and you have to find it amongst all the other pieces still waiting their turn to find their place to belong.
Once in a while, another passenger will come along and offer to help. "Why don't you try this piece here?" they say. Sometimes it fits and the two of you find a couple more before the other person has to move on as part of their own journey. Sometimes, it doesn't fit and you are left frustrated and wondering what help the other person really was.
Then, there are those that either accidentally or deliberately disrupt the picture and damage your work. Sometimes, it is a good thing. It shifts things around and you find something you missed before. Sometimes, it destroys a section you worked so hard for! Was it meant to be? With the destruction, how do you know if it was the right picture or not? Maybe you made a mistake and the destruction will help you fix it, even if you didn't know it was wrong. Maybe it was right and the damage ruined the picture and you have to figure out how to make it work again.
It is said that the Japanese do not fix broken pottery as North Americans do. Americans will either throw the broken pieces away and decide whether to replace the original object and with what, or they will try to glue the pieces back together to never show the damage that was done. However, the Japanese will fit the pottery pieces back together and fill the cracks with gold lacquer. It is supposed to be a way of honouring the scars as part of the history of the object instead of hiding them, while making a unique piece. Broken roads are often repaired in the same manner until such time as they can be replaced. Even then, they often still go in the same direction, with the same curves and twists and stopping points as before, just a new surface that will eventually wear down as the old one did.
I think there is a lesson to be learned in that process. Is it necessary to fit all the pieces exactly how they were before so that there are no scars showing? Is it necessary to throw out the broken pieces and forget they existed, that they held meaning and even in the breaking, that they had a story and a lesson to share?
Or is it possible to put the pieces back together in a way that honours the past and still makes room for the complete object to have meaning in the future, too?
I am afraid that only effort and time can answer that question. How much effort and time are you willing to put in before the piece is finished or will you give up just before you finally see the result?
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