Photo by Marco Montalti | Shutterstock
The Art of Healing
Last month, Hannah Dailey came to our home. She was in Phoenix to interview local Holocaust survivors for the National World War 2 Museum in New Orleans.
I looked up from my low chair angled before the packed bookshelves and saw her face between the camera and the microphone, next to the treadmill.
Hannah Dailey
Hannah had read A Garland for Ashes, she had many questions about my childhood and the conversation flowed.
And then she asked me to describe the incident with the scissors, I looked puzzled and she said, The time you stabbed Hitler’s picture in the newspaper.
Filmed interviews with spontaneous questions always fill me with trepidation. My answers will have a life of their own. There’s a rightful restraint. How can I be truthful and forthright and say something of value. There are so many memories, is this a significant part of my story to share?
Hannah asked this particular question and so I briefly recounted the drama of the event without much reflection.
And then, a few days later, Laura Nathan sent seven samples of her work illustrating the documentary #8814,
asking my response, three still photos, four videos with sounds.
Laura was engaging with one memory….the one when I stabbed Hitler’s image in the newspaper.
I recoiled from the violence, Laura wrote,
Sounds like a gun!
And the thought dawned on me,
I really must think more deeply about this event in my past.
What a volcano of anger erupted from the heart of a small child.
How helpless I had been to deal with the evil done against my family and me.
What has happened since that release of suppressed anger?
How have these wounds been healed?
And then I open the latest clip from #8814, still being edited by David and Kathi Peters….and I marvel at the timing of their sharing as my question hangs in the air,
How have these wounds been healed?
Work in Progress
And what does Kintsugi have to do with my story?
Kintsugi is a Japanese art form, taking broken shards of pottery, gluing them back together with molten gold, so that the restored vessel is more beautiful and valuable than the original.