carine hartman 2021

By Carine Hartman

Chief sub-editor


Filling the cracks of life

Like objects, our hearts can be repaired over time. However, they can still bleed.


Glass half full has always been me. But sometimes, just some days you taste the dregs of life and your glass breaks.

Like your heart.

It doesn’t have to be a love lost leaving you howling to the moon.

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It can simply be you howling to a beautiful song that was dedicated to you one stormy night just because you weathered the weather to support the dishy guitarist – and he sends you a link to it months later as if to say: “Thank you, I remember…”

And it’s invariably music that breaks hearts.

It’s being moved by our own Innocent Masuku wowing you with his operatic voice in the semifinal of Britain’s Got Talent.

It’s Rod Stewart and Amy Bell ripping your heart out with their rendition of I Don’t Wanna Talk About It. It’s Bob Dylan’s Corrinna, Corinna that brings Beloved back to life with his bunch of daffodils knocking down my door at 6am, making me feel he’s been looking for just me.

And it’s our golden girl’s beaming smile as she surfaces from the water at the Games and just knows she’s bagged the gold.

It’s Eben Etzebeth just wanting to jump into the ring when his boy Dricus du Plessis followed his trainer’s advice to “just moer him”.

Yes, I cry all the time, every day.

My friend’s joy at hearing she’s seeing her darlings from Down Under for Christmas breaks my heart.

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As do powerful words – whether it’s a friend lying in his coffin and his last words are read. “You’re a nightmare,” his widow heard. “But you’re my nightmare.”

So how can you mend a broken heart, the Bee Gees asked?

There is the Japanese art of Kintsugi where masters use gold leaf to patch life’s mishaps up.

The broken pieces are lovingly glued together and decorated with paper-thin gold leaf accentuating the flaws.

Now superglue and I make a mean master I know after putting together the shards of a pot that fell out of Daughter’s hand minutes after she paid much too much for it.

Stuffed in a plastic bag under her bed, we hauled it out months later after we invested in some gold leaf and my trusty superglue. And did we create a thing of beauty.

Only thing is: it still leaks.

So heal your heart’s scars with beautiful golden lines – but know: it will still bleed…

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