I took a chance on a hackberry bowl at a farmer’s market—blue-stained and turned like a drop of water. It’s a good name for it. He had hacked it down at the bottom of his garden. (They’re filling in the timber where the oaks aren’t coming back.)
But the craftsman had never worked that kind of wood before, kiln-dried at steamy summer’s height. “Will it split?”
It did. Now it’s winter, and I make kintsukuroi, a golden repair. I found the wax conservators use on gilded picture-frames, and had some mailed from London. It softens in the heat of hands.
Go on. Let the dry air crack you open. You can break and be mended again.
