Golden Joinery
Several years ago, I broke a ceramic travel mug that was very precious to me. I had purchased it from a small coffee shop in Mendocino on a much needed and transformative vacation, and it was handmade by a local whose work was so distinctive and exquisite that people stopped me on the street to ask if my mug had been made by him. Like all handmade things, it was one-of-a-kind. Dramatic as it sounds, my heart broke a little when the mug did. Only the handle broke (incidentally the most beautiful and intricate part of the piece), so it was fixable, but I knew would never be the same. It would always be a little uglier, a little marred, a little reminder of my clumsiness. When the mug broke, I was in a very different place in my life. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was beginning a downslide into depression, which resulted in a general attitude of anger, bitterness, and resentment--especially towards myself and my mistakes. I felt all of those things when I broke my mug, so instead o
