Inspired by an exercise her therapist gave her, Thea goes to estate sales to buy fine china to smash. Small plates rimmed in gold, porcelain tea cups once gripped by tiny upper-class fingers. Her favorites were the engraved ones. Intricate initials next to a family crest. Baby names before they are sullied.
Instructions: Take the dishware outside and throw it against a brick wall.
*Modification: You can also do this with ice cubes.
Thea quickly realized ice cubes did not have the same effect.
Her therapist began to prescribe this method to his mostly-wealthy clients in the affluent area of Big Sur at The Esalen Institute, a retreat for holistic learning, mind, body, spirit and soul. Esalen describes itself as a “creative laboratory,” and “the birthplace of the human potential movement in 1962.”
Thea was searching for her own higher self. If they used china, so would she.
She googled “estate sales in Kansas City,” and clicked on the first link in the search, EstateSales.net. That very day there was a huge multi-generation estate sale in Overland Park, Kansas, only 12 miles from Thea’s home. The unsentimental kids were selling off EVERYTHING from their parents’ and grandparents’ collections.
Listed was a cabinet full of fine china, Oxford Bone, Blue Ridge, Italian, Royal Majestic, and crystal, Waterford, Fostoria, Heisey. A Norman Rockwell Collectibles set with two young boys sitting under an umbrella on a square wood plank, à la Huckleberry Finn, fishing with a small pup. And sandwich pattern depression glass.
Depression glass seems right for the job, Thea thought. She went to the Sommerset sale and bought them all.
Thea threw the first glass behind an empty carriage house a block behind her own. She watched her sadness break into hundreds of tiny pieces. Did she now have to clean it up? Was this also part of the exercise? She didn’t remember her therapist mentioning what to do once she smashed the china against the wall. Maybe she could gather the pieces and make a sculpture painting like Julian Schnabel. Maybe she could be a barrel-chested bohemian artist. Then maybe she’d feel better.
Thea pulled a tea cup out of a brown paper grocery bag and imagined pouring a hot cup of anger into the beautiful vessel, then hurled it as hard as she could. A shard of ceramic flew back towards her face, sticking in her long, salt and pepper hair. Ash dusting her shoes.
Thea turned smashing into a ritual. She repeated this exercise for the next nine days.
Growing tired of smashing on her own, Thea remembered all those “scream therapy” posts she used to see on Instagram. Young girls going out into the woods and just screaming together. Or a handwritten piece of paper taped to a glass door that said sacred rage. Scream it out. Release yourself.
Thea decided she would send out an invite for “smash therapy.” She filmed herself throwing four Oxford Bone “Lexington” saucer plates, etched with delicate flowers, one after another. She uploaded the reel with the caption: Smash Therapy in the Crossroads @ 16th and Charlotte, 7pm. Bring a piece to throw #letsbreakshit.
Thea was standing on the corner holding her grocery bag full of china. Three girls showed up. Porcelina, Lily, and JellyBelly. She explained the “rules” to them as they walked down the alleyway behind a defunct creamery.
Speak what you wish to release into the plate or cup you brought, then throw it at the wall.
Thea started and the others quickly followed suit. They threw in silence, then standing among the broken pieces, they began to laugh. Hollering cries of relief as their anxiousness turned to excitement.
The newly-formed foursome agreed to meet again for the next nine nights.
They felt like graffiti artists lurking in the night, porcelain bombing the sides of establishments framed with the most inviting walls. A place to direct their justifiable and unavoidable rage.
They weren’t smashing the patriarchy, they were smashing through their human potential. Smashing the brains and bones of every limiting belief, reimagining what could be done living inside a body.
They didn’t want to get “well.” They wanted to transcend. If they threw long enough and hard enough, could they open a portal to a new dimension? Could they “break on through to the other side?”
At the very least, in the moment, they felt more alive. A dose of adrenaline, endorphins, a new hit of dopamine after each smash. They couldn’t contain the infectious action. The more they smashed, the more they shared online. The more people joined. The alleyways got fuller, the groups had to disperse, taking over the entire district, from Truman on the north end to 20th on the south, between Broadway and Charlotte.
The remnants of their nightly smashing left for the business owners and their patrons to walk over the next day. People started picking up bits of broken china like they used to with pennys. Maybe they would find some luck.
After each smash, Thea would return to EstateSales.net to look for her next load. She encouraged everyone to do the same.
Thea decided to write a smashing code, a manifesto of sorts. Something they could repeat to recruit:
We smash so we can rest.
Each piece, like a tiny particle floating in space after we die.
Our matter is not destroyed, it accumulates.
We smash because a man told me to in order to survive.
They could feel their power growing. It was palpitating. It was rearranging a whole district. Creating a force field. Anyone who entered could feel it.
Soon even the streets were covered in their smashings. Fragments jutting out, stacked, forming a new layer of earth. Finally the cars stopped trying.
The smashers all wore rubber boots as they continued their ritual. They stood upon mounds of potential. And as the businesses closed a new group started to emerge, the plasters. They took each spec of china, crystal, glass and began to adhere it to the buildings. Beautiful mosaics formed around them. The buildings took on a new life just as they were. Once a bustling arts district, filled with First Friday-goers, bars, and banks, a true crossroads of commerce and creativity, was now a living, breathing architecture of transformation. The city had lost control.
Drones flew overhead to watch them work. Dozens of livestreams on YouTube and TikTok documented each new phase. The old Kansas City Star printing press building made of 400,000 square feet of green glass became the smashers’ wellspring. It was the source and the site. Constructing deeper meaning among the detritus. A framework Thea hoped would grow beyond her corner of the world.
Thousands of smashers and plasters worked day and night now. Food trucks, mobile showers and bathrooms, even mini medic tents set up outside the perimeters. Drop-off sites were designated and kept full of china. This open-air studio became a collective commitment to creating a new way of being.
Once everything was smashed and plastered. Thea wondered what would come next. How far could they take it? She gathered the original four. Porcelina, Lily, JellyBelly, and Thea mused on their desires and where they envisioned this project going. They exhausted the material plane, endured the mental, pioneered the soul, what’s left is the spirit. A true connection to the divine. They knew what had to be done. Surrender completely to truly connect.
Just like before, Thea went first. This time what was broken was not china, but her bone. They took turns until there was nothing left to smash, Thea was unbound.