About Porcelain Dust and Happy Dances

by Alfonsina Betancourt

Growing up - although if I do an open disclosure it has not changed much since then - I used to be a restless child.  I had an excess of energy that I could barely contain.  I am not sure if there is a scientific name for it but I would guess it would go by the name of JFWES or Jumping and Fidgety When Excited Syndrome. I was that kid that could sit for hours to do art projects, write, read, play music or study but when I was excited, I just jumped and had to move my whole body.  

My mother, who is way more passive than I have ever seen, was smart enough to understand that what I had was a force that could barely be contained. So she being the cool mom she was, just let me be. That was until my display of energy had irreparable consequences. 

One weekday afternoon my cousin came to visit with his new girlfriend. I loved my cousin and it seemed like such a treat to have him home from college to introduce us to his now wife. I was seven or eight years-old at the time but I perfectly remember how happy I was to see them. They sat down on the living room sofa while we waited for my mom to arrive from a long day of work at the hospital and then at her private practice.  I took the opportunity to entertain them.  I turned around on my pink dress, letting my curls move with the wind. I showcased my somewhat dubious abilities as gymnast doing cartwheels and attempts at handstand. My ballerina moves seemed absolutely perfect for the occasion, so I twirled around and pretended to walk on the point of my feet.  They were very generous with their attention and laughs, which fueled my desire to keep showing off.  So, I decided to jump from the arm of the sofa.  I miscalculated the space and as I tried to regain my balance my hand got caught in a lampshade.  As in a slow motion movie,  I turned around to see a gigantic lamp rocking on the side table, until it flew in the air and landed on the granite floor.

Oh, no!

It wasn’t any lamp. It was ap gigantic antique my aunt had brought to my mom from one of her trips. It never went with the rest of our house. But it had sat there for years, with its traditional Chinese intricate design.  Shattered to pieces, tiny fragments of porcelain, some as tiny as dust, it laid on the floor. I felt in my stomach the punch of a ineluctable reality and a realization that as much as I wanted I could not go back in time and avoid what had happened. I grabbed pieces of what was left of the lamp, studying if I could glue them before my mom arrived. But that puzzle of million pieces needed more than Crazy Glue: it needed a miracle. I can’t remember how long after my mom showed up on our front door. It could have been a minute or hours. All I knew is that I was suspended on that surreal time of knowing I was in trouble without a possible solution on hand. 

Of course, my mom was furious. Not so much for what it was lost, but with the fact that could have been avoided. She talked about a concept that seemed as foreign to me at the moment as that Chinese lamp: it had sentimental value. But I got it immediately. It was not how much money it cost but about the immaterial connection established though the act of giving.

Yes, I felt like shit.  

My mom, always so understanding and loving put the matter to rest soon after. In fact, as an ode to the manual of wonderful motherhood, she never even brought it up again and hold it against me. The lamp was replaced for a meaningless one and life continued as it always does.

The lesson persisted, though. What I learned that day had accompanied me throughout my life.

There are times that break us to pieces. There are news that are hard to swallow. There are moments when we desperately wish we could go back in time and act differently, choose other options, say something else, unheard news. There are periods where all we see are the shattered pieces of our soul and we don’t know how to put them back together.  We want to be whole as we were before.  But we are not different than that Chinese lamp with sentimental value. There are parts of our soul that are fragile and can’t go back to the way they were before being shattered.  We are partly porcelain dust.

That day my fidgety nature ended the life of the Chinese lamp, I learned that even when things can’t go back to the way they were, life does continue. We can transform, we can become something new, we can be changed and we can move on. The world did not end because of what was broken. 

We insist on avoiding change with so much determination that we see every crack as an apocalypse. We will all break eventually, and we will all become something new after heartache. Our strength is in our capacity to keep going, even if that sometimes looks like we need to trash what we once valued once it has become dust of what it was or what we were. 

Undoubtedly,  I learned that jumping from the arm of a sofa could be dangerous. But, and I have to partly credit my mom that allowed me to keep the lesson and not the guilt, I continued being the girl that jumped with excitement, and twirled and fidgeted as if life has an expiration date and it needs to be celebrated. The certainty that joy prevails even when we are broken and changed is probably one of the most important treasures of my innocent childhood. That part never alters. So don’t blame me if you see me dancing around, dispersing porcelain dust. I am still a lamp and I am still the fidgety girl, and no fall would ever take that away. 

Not in vain it is said we are dust, and to dust we will return. What happens in between, is just life and growth and happy, fidgety dances. And I am grateful for that!