When the Bowl Breaks

Photo by Matt Perkins on Unsplash

The white ceramic bowl slipped through my hands and slammed onto the granite counter.

I had just called everyone down for dinner, and I was spooning the pasta. I reached for a bowl from the cupboard, and somehow it slipped, dropping on the counter with a loud clash. Shards flew everywhere: in the pot, in the already prepared dinner bowls, and across the kitchen floor like a mutiny of tiny kitchen saboteurs.

I felt it immediately—that familiar pressure rise in my chest. It was like when a can of soda gets shaken, waiting to explode everywhere. My jaw clenched, and throat got tight. Twenty years ago, hell, even ten years ago, I would have gone for it without thinking...I would have become the storm.

The memory came back instantly: I was sixteen years old, standing in our driveway after a trip to the local burger joint. I balanced the food on the car roof to grab the drinks, miscalculated, and watched my burger tumble into the gravel. In the surge of frustration fueled by hunger and embarrassment, I kicked the scattered lettuce and tomato across the driveway. Then I repeatedly kicked the car tire as if it was what caused the food to drop. I grabbed my perfectly good Coke and flung it as hard as I could, watching it explode on the pavement.

Back then, I was a live wire, sparking at the slightest provocation —just like my stepfather was.

Back in my kitchen, the moment was different. Even as I felt that old familiar pressure rising, something else rose with it…awareness.

I recognized what was happening. I could feel my heart rate climbing, my thoughts spiraling toward frustration and blame. But instead of surrendering to it, I heard myself say, “I can't deal with this... I need to go walk this off.”

I stepped outside alone. Sat on my back porch in the evening air. There was a gentle breeze, just enough to make the leaves on the trees surrounding me sway. I got a whiff of the barn. Maybe the horses are enjoying their dinner. I breathed slowly, intentional breaths—in and out, in and out—until I felt my heart rate settle. Until I could think again instead of just reacting.

I repeated a mantra, something a spiritual mentor once said to me that carried with me long after he passed, "Now is all you got...don't screw it up."

I went back inside; the barn smell was clinging to my clothes, but I was calm. Clear. I opened the freezer and pulled out backup meals.

“Food will be ready in five minutes,” I announced. Simple. Practical. No drama, no chaos, no storm for my family to weather.

Reflecting on it now, it reminds me of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with golden lacquer. The cracks aren’t something to hide; they become part of the beauty. Turning the ordinary into extraordinary.

Maybe that’s it — taking what has broken in us and remaking it into something worth keeping. Not hiding it. Not avoiding it. Sewing it with a sacred thread that becomes part of healing...part of the story. Our hearts don’t have to have ugly scars; they can be repaired in ways that make them stronger, more intricate, more ours. Maybe we're all stitched souls. Some of us just haven’t noticed the thread yet.

This is the work—the slow, unglamorous work of healing old wounds and staying connected to yourself when life gets messy — of remembering that a broken bowl is just a broken bowl, not a reason to unleash twenty years of buried pain. My family appreciated not experiencing my anger. My blood pressure appreciated not getting wound up. And my soul appreciated knowing that a few slow breaths were all it took to return to stillness.

Some days, the most radical act is not becoming the storm. Some days, the deepest spiritual practice is cleaning up broken ceramic with a calm heart, knowing you’ve been stitched back together with something more beautiful than you were before.

The bowl broke. I didn’t.

That’s enough.

Maybe you’ve had your own moment like that — when the storm passed you by and you stayed whole. Hold onto it.

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