Something I’ve been into lately is patching my jeans.
I’ve always been a gangly dude. My physique is more edges than curves, and those edges (my knees in particular) wear down the sturdiest of fabrics. Tears and holes abound in what are otherwise perfectly serviceable pairs of pants.
There is a subreddit called Visible Mending where I picked up a few tips (this YouTube channel is also great). The name of the group is apt. Whereas some repairs go out of their way to hide the fix, others accentuate it — they make the mend visible. This transparency and honesty is why I find this kind of handicraft satisfying.
Sashiko repairs garments with inexpensive cotton thread, stitching it into simple geometric patterns. It’s beauty in the service of utility. The hundreds of little stitches make a repair cool looking to be sure, but they are also what reinforces and strengthens the fabric.
Here’s the poetry in something like sashiko for me — it isn’t about reversing the march of time. It’s about acknowledging time’s irreversibility. You wear the evidence of change and decay “on your sleeve.” It also de-emphasizes perfection and wholeness by attending to imperfection and weakness. You accentuate and ennoble the broken aspects of a thing.
There are many Japanese traditions that practice this kind of acknowledgement. You may know about Kintsugi — the process of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with gold or silver. And all of this falls under the larger worldview of wabi-sabi. Lots of wisdom in that approach to living.
I know we're just talking about knee patches, but if you're feeling expansive, they can serve as a reminder that no one is completely intact. We all carry evidence of heartbreak, loss, and change. You might not be able to choose how broken you become, but you can always choose to wear your brokenness with tenderness and dignity. Leonard Cohen says it well: "There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”
There's more to say (design and art that make a point to showcase imperfection, guitar solos that intentionally repeat a mistake, the ship of Theseus, etc.) but I'll leave it here. Thanks for reading. See ya next month.
Recent Work
Some of what’s flown the coop. You can always see more over at the ol’ portfolio: brentmccormick.com
Whiskers on kittens
A few of my favorite things.
Braiding Sweetgrass. I hope to devote an entire post to what this book has taught me, but it's full of gorgeous, stirring reflections on nature, our gifts, our responsibilities, and more. I will listen and re-listen to this audiobook until I die.
Don’t know how I got here but I found this basketball video on overhelping strangely resonant and analogous to creative practices and like, life.