211. Mirrorball

Nora’s friend made her a huge, gorgeous abstract mirrorball for her living room wall — and it serves as a reminder about making something new from shards of imperfection.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

My home decor style could be described as…chaotic. If I like something, I like it, and if I like it, I want to display it. Less is not more, more is more, and I want more of everything. This means that many of the walls in my house are covered with things. Framed poster-size photos. Vintage needlepoints. Vintage paint by numbers. Miniatures. My set of impressions from when I had my retainer made. Art by my friends. Art by my kids. 

In the mid-morning, when the sun streams in the windows, they’re all accentuated by glowing dots of light. Dots of light that spread across the walls and ceiling and floor as the sun moves across the sky and hits the mirrorball hanging on the wall.

It’s really half a mirrorball, it sits flush with the wall and appears to be melting at the bottom. It was a gift from someone I love, someone who knows my style and my budget and knew that the ones for sale online for hundreds or thousands of dollars wouldn’t be making it into my shopping cart. 

2023 was a helluva year, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Worldwide, I think we’d agree it was zero stars. But within my own little part of the universe, it felt like the kind of year that brought nearly everyone I knew to their knees. The phone would ring, and I’d just know that on the other end of the line, someone I love was watching their own world burn to the ground. And before the ashes had cooled – whoosh! – another phone call, another person’s life bursting into flames. 

I’ve had many conversations with my friend and producer Marcel Malekebu who is 10 years younger and 10000 years wiser than me, conversations where he reminds me that death is a from of rebirth, that for something new to be made, something else has to die, fall apart, get completely wrecked.

Not right away, of course. Everything takes time, and everything happens in its own time. 

The woman who made me this mirrorball had been hit by the wrecking ball of 2023. It was actually the second or third time the pendulum had swung her way in as many years; the kind of heartbreak where it just gets worse, even when you think it can’t possibly. 

The gift was a total and complete surprise, and when I opened it I gasped and then I cried. Because I could see her. Cracking apart pieces of mirror with her hands as her kids slept upstairs and her mind raced about her uncertain future. Gluing and molding and shaping the base after a long day of work. Finding the perfect configurations, and filling in the cracks with silver paint to make sure it looked good in the light. Creating something beautiful in the midst of so much ugliness. Making something new from the remnants in her craft closet. Something that finds even the smallest bit of light and throws it back out into the world. 

There was a note in the box, and it said something about how it wasn’t perfect and I shouldn’t look too close at it, but she tried.

I’ve looked VERY closely at it, and I can’t see a single flaw. But I can see the effort. I can see, every morning, what can be done with a lot of broken pieces and some very strong glue.

The mirrorball is her, and me, and you, and all of the lives we thought we might have, and all of the lives we have left. 

OUTRO MUSIC

CREDITS