I haven’t been writing songs for all that long, but it’s somehow become an inseparable part of how I move through the world. I find it is both a backward and forward looking process - a way to reflect on the things I have been through and the person I have been, as well as a way to remind myself of the person I would like to be.

kintsugi is all of those things at once. It’s a love letter to the people who have sat by me through my very worst moments - with a mug of warm tea and blanket and a candle and an infinite willingness to pour the best of themselves into me. I often think that my very best moments don’t really come from me, but are simply the natural result of having been loved in this way. And so as much as it is a tribute to those who have loved me, this song is also a pledge to carry the love forward - to bring the kettle and blanket and hold the candle for anyone who could use a little extra care.

It’s become cliche to say it, but we are all in this big, wild world together, and each of us is shaped by the people that leave their mark on us.

The first time I came across the Japanese art of kintsugi, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s the practice of taking broken pottery and carefully piecing it back together with lacquer mixed with precious metal dust - usually gold, but sometimes also silver or platinum. 

The result is that something that it would be so easy to think of as garbage is transformed into a uniquely beautiful piece of art. And the loveliest parts are along what we might call fault lines.

I think we are not so different. From the moment we breathe the air on this earth we start to acquire our own fault lines. Some of them are tiny, some are deep, but we all bear the marks of what we’ve been through. And what we’ve been through can leave us shattered, or it can be the very thing that makes us uniquely luminous. And very often, the way we’re handled when we don’t have it in us to handle ourselves makes all the difference.

The world feels to me like it’s shattering right now, and I think it’s a time when we all need to be handled with a little extra love. If you find yourself in need of a hug today, or a little breath of air, or a quiet couple of moments, I hope my little song might help ♥