If any country and it's people ever typified resilience, Japan wholly qualifies.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima.
Incredible stories of destruction and suffering.
And recovery.
Kintsukuroi is a fabulous Japanese word, laced with a beautiful philosophical potency.
Per Wikipedia:
Kintsugi (Japanese: 金継ぎ, romanized: "golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.
The art of Kintsukuroi and it's metaphor oh so resonates with me.
It may well be relatable if you have a scar.
And we all develop scars throughout our lives.
I was recently gifted a kintsukuroi t-shirt, a navy garment with golden Kintsugi lines.
I shared the sentiment of the item with a small group of people who, like myself, had undergone a massive life altering Whipple surgery and chemotherapy.
And they all related 💜.
Aside from the arduous physical recovery of a pancreaticoduodenectomy, aka a Whipple, it's a challenge to come to terms with such an invasive surgery and cancer treatment, on another level.
The loss of one's body parts, provokes a complex range of feelings from a sense of mourning and pain, to an admiration for the marvels of modern surgery, from astonishment to self belief of human resilience and recovery.
That our bodies continue to function, with several digestive organs removed, split and spliced, to be surgically reassembled, albeit requiring a modest intake of mealtime medicine, is nothing short of incredible.
I had a laparoscopic intervention, machine surgery conducted as a Da Vinci robotic assisted surgery.
Whilst this meant my operation lasted nearly twelve hours, far longer than most, I was spared the open surgery incision and huge abdominal scar that fellow Whipplers endured.
My most notable physical scars remain the pencil diameter puncture points for drainage bags tubes that accompanied me for months afterwards, and even those are barely visible now.
Fellow patients flaunt their abdominal scars and will lovingly boast how many staples or stitches it took to patch them back up.
Yet scars are more than physical.
The Japanese believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.
That's why they repair broken objects with gold lacquer, and instead of trying to conceal defects and cracks, they accentuate and celebrate them as they have become proof of imperfection and fragility but also of resilience and of the ability to recover and become stronger.
A marvellous philosophy to beholden in this all too disposable age.
Resilience is indeed remarkable.
My friend who gifted the t-shirt knows it.
She lost a leg in a road accident during childhood.
La música, la letra, y el espíritu de Jarabe De Palo siempre me ha encantado y el fallecimiento del cantante del grupo, Pau Donés, en el 2020 de cancer, me emocionó de una forma muy profunda.
Annus horribilis
Aunque los últimos dos años de mi vida, entre síntomas, admisión al hospital, diagnostico, cirugía, recuperación, complicaciones y quimioterapia* - todo me ha puesto de prueba, recuerdo que durante esos días y noches larguísimas en la UCI de abril 2023 tras la cirugía, la música fue parte de mi salvación.
En aquellos momentos escuchaba mucho Bach. Y veía videos de Robby Naish, otro héroe de mi juventud.
*Pronto publicaré otro post con detalles de mi año que me ha cambiado la vida.
Recuperación
Cuando salía de cada sesión de quimioterapia del edificio del hospital del día el año pasado y hasta noviembre cuando tuve que abandonar el tratamiento de forma prematura, escuchaba la música de Jarabe de Palo de Depende.
Dentro del recinto del hospital se oía por altavoz del colegio cercano y me llenaba el alma.
El colegio lo ponía a toda regla al patio para notificar a los peques de volver a o salir de clase.
La letra y el significado de la canción me inspira.
Al igual que la letra de Déjame Vivir, una canción que esta bien interpretado aquí que se centra en la libertad y expresión.
Filtro perro globo ✨
Cuando observe que además se había pintado el exterior del colegio por un muralista con un perro globo estilo Jeff Kroons, me alimento la imaginación y decidimos en Everywoah de colaborar y aumentarlo por la camera en las apps de Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, y Snapchat produciendo un filtro de realidad aumentada.
Apuntas al perro globo con la camera del móvil y con un toque lo liberas del mural y lo envías al cielo.
Espero que los alumnos y viandantes de la zona, tantos pacientes oncológicos que cualquiera que disfrute de su imaginación y que quiera disfrutar de la felicidad le inspire la obra al igual que lo ha hecho para mi.
Porque tal como dijo Pau:
No tengáis miedo, no odiéis, la vida son cuatro días, y tres pasaron ya. No estemos aquí de mala leche, estemos aquí de buen humor....Sean felices, la vida es urgente, la vida es una y ahora, y hay que vivirla a tope.
The lettuce won - that’s how every person and their dog shared the news last week of the resignation of Liz Truss as the UK PM.
What started out as a healthy LOL about 10 days ago for me when the live cam was created, rapidly turned into a work sprint to serve up a googly eye official augmented reality Instagram filter after the Daily Star formally commanded Everywoah to rustle something up.
At times of gloom and woe, and yes political hellfires, people continue to fiercely enjoy shared experiences and healthy humour, and there’s plenty of reasons why remixable video, aka AR filters, compliment video live streams, chats and tweets, with copious amounts of bantz all week long.
Tip of the Lactuca sativa var. capitata
When you end up walking into a meme with an AR filter it can take any sort of direction, these video clips in this compilation are literally the tip of the iceberg.
As trite as silly face filters may seem, they appeal to our innate sense of escapism, of acting, of playing up - sort of like momentary fancy dress without too much of the hassle of the apparel and physical makeup.
And it’s notable how many people feel free and safer when their true identity is partially concealed yet they can still exasperate and express themselves through a daft mask.
The Daily Star bantz big time
Congrats to the Daily Star who sparked a cultural phenomenon as the story gained widespread participation and coverage from UK and global media.
In doing so they have ensured that the humble 60p lettuce follows in the tradition of british satire entering the hall of political fame and folklore, forever destined to rank highly among other revered foods joining the likes of the tub of lard (Roy Hattersley), eggs (John Prescott, et al), milkshake (Nigel Farage, various), custard pies (Ann Widdecombe, Rupert Murdoch), and that more contemporary morsel, the bacon sarnie (Ed Miliband).
And whilst many astute observers around these parts have noted that the Daily Star staff are closet Economist fans having taken editorial inspiration from their “iceberg lady” and “shelf life of a lettuce” quips, there’s another deeper conspiracy story worth digging up that may explain the head start the lettuce genuinely had.
Grocery Gazette spills the beans
You see back in sunny hot September, the esteemed publication Grocery Gazette, announced that UK supermarket Tesco had relaxed the required specification of its Iceberg lettuces, allowing growers to harvest them quicker so they retained their crispiness.
The new sizing specification meant that lettuces - mostly exported here from Murcia, SE Spain from where I compile this piece - were permitted to be harvested up to two days earlier than before, ensuring they didn’t wilt in the fields and stayed crisper for longer.
So now you know, global warming and the risk of crop failure ultimately impacts political life.