A hundred year soul

Old furniture is heavy. It has thick metal hardware, solid construction, and it is made of dense, slow-growing varieties of wood. When something is heavy, it must be moved deliberately. Moving heavy things requires purpose, planning, analysis, and care. A piece of heavy furniture can not be flippantly discarded in an alley. It can not be chucked out the back door next to the dumpster. It can’t even be brought with you without intention, you have to really want for it to come along. Everything that is inherited brings with it the weight of being chosen over and over again to keep coming along, to keep being a part of the family, and each time resources were dedicated to making sure it made the journey. 

                                           

In Japanese folklore, Tsukumogami is the concept that regular household objects, once they have reached one hundred years of age, are endowed with a soul. Acts of wastefulness are therefore tantamount to a display of disrespect, as if you had thrown away a living, breathing human being. These items have purpose as well as usefulness, an inherent work ethic, and individual integrity. When an object is broken and discarded, it is in a way ‘dishonored’ for having failed to continue serving its intended purpose in perpetuity. 

Japan, an island with finite physical space and resources, has an interest in encouraging thrift. It serves both a cultural purpose, by passing down items that have intrinsic value within a family, and a sustainability one, by limiting the number of items produced using scarce raw materials. But waste can be curbed without the need to create within an object a distinct emotional entity and animating it with self esteem and shame. Sometimes, the souls are said to be mischievous. Rarely are they mean-spirited, but even the sweetest wardrobes can have sour days. As in, "I stubbed my toe on grandma's dresser again, she always does that." The imperative to care for an heirloom becomes in a way a vessel for ancestor worship, as the soul begins to take on a once familiar set of traits.

Each February on the streets of Tokyo, kimono-clad women at the Hari Kuyo festival gently retire their sewing needles into a large block of tofu, symbolically wrapping them in tenderness in their twilight days. The soft pincushion is meant to be a gentle farewell, as well as an overture of appreciation for the needle’s many years of dedicated service in the production of fine clothing. It is also said that this "Festival of Broken Needles" reflects the quiet stoicism with which Japanese housewives carry their own burdens. A sewing needle may be the single visual focal point of a lifetime of sorrow, silent sadness put to use through household chores. When a needle breaks, it is not just a broken tool, but a wounded friend deserving of a memorial service. 

But not all damaged things are retired. 

The art of kintsukuroi, where broken pottery is mended with gold, provides a conspicuous reminder that a bowl has been given a new life. Made more valuable for having been given another chance, both the damage, and the repair, weave additional dimensions into the story of a simple dish. The veins of gold are a stark reminder that the bowl has a life, a history, and a memory.