I love my bookshelf. It’s not fancy; it’s just a simple, tall shelf that allows a book lover like me some accessible space for books. Over the years, however, I have become most thankful for the very top of my very tall bookshelf – it is the perfect place to store all items that I confiscate from my kids. The top of my bookshelf helps me keep my home safe – I have a toddler with a keen talent for turning harmless looking toys into weapons of mass destruction. The top of the bookshelf has slowly become one of my favourite places in the world.
Recently, my kids began to plead and beg me to return their walkie-talkie handsets from atop the bookshelf. They promised and swore that they would never hurl them at each other again. My son promised he would never use the antenna to poke his sister in the eye. They seemed very sincere so I pulled up a chair and hopped up to retrieve the confiscated walkie-talkies from the land of the forbidden fruit. By this time, I had confiscated so many items, they were all nestled inside a cardboard box that perched atop the bookshelf. As I stood on the chair I teetered on tippy-toes to reach over the high sides of the box. I still couldn’t reach in. Lazy to carry down the entire box I decided to take a tiny bit of support from one of the intermediate divisions of the book shelf while still standing on the chair. I guess the weight of knowledge from the set of encyclopedias combined with my own physical weight was all a bit overwhelming for the shelf. The wooden plank snapped from it’s supports with a sickening crack. The poor shelf stood sad and broken while I lay on the floor half laughing and half trying to process the pain in my right knee.
My phone rang straight after the episode and I mentioned it to my friend on the other end of the line. She casually said, “Just chuck out the shelf and get a new one. It’s not worth the effort to fix it…”
However, the other night, my husband and I brought out the toolkit, screws, glue, etc and got to work. We felt a bit like surgeons giving this shelf a second chance at life. My colourful mind went to work along with my fingers. As I absentmindedly ran glue through my hair, I remembered a country song that is very close to my heart – “Things built to last”. One part of the song goes like this…
“We live in a world now of plastic and glue
Disposable honor, replaceable truth
And if a pot breaks, why fix it?
Man, what’s the use?
It costs less to buy it brand new”
Indeed, that’s the world we live in. A “use and throw” world where nothing and no one is indispensable – all in the name of progress and efficiency. Progress has indeed come at a very dear cost. It has taught us to constantly go after the big things before we have properly learned to be faithful in the little things. Progress has taught us to trade in the old for the new – blinding us to even the wisdom of the old. Progress has taught us to stay connected and yet, we remain so disconnected – so close and yet, so far.
We had been advised to throw our shelf away and buy a new one. Yet, as we sat trying to fix it – two old-school people who still believe in fixing things – I felt a kind of peace settle over me. There is something magical about fixing a broken thing – a broken shelf, a broken piece of furniture, a broken heel, a broken toy, a broken relationship, a broken dream, a broken perspective, a broken life – choosing to see potential where there appears to be none.
My husband and I fixed the bookshelf shelf – just as we have taken time to fix several things, objects and issues together over the years. Repairing my shelf didn’t drastically alter my life but it did make my heart very happy and it gently reminded me of a great truth – in the midst of a very fast paced world, resolution is almost always found within the pause -if only we cared enough to pause! The more I journey through life, the more I am convinced that most of life’s broken somethings are fixable with a bit of time, a bit of love, a dash of compromise, a splash of creativity, the right kind of “glue” and sometimes, a tiny bit of heat. Any scuff marks from the process…well, those just count for character.
– Melissa Domingo
9 Aug, 2017