Scars Become a Luster: Thirty-Two Years as a Furniture Restorer in Florence

Prologue

Dusk. In a back alley of Florence, where the bustle of tourists has faded away. The setting sun shines into the workshop, one street in from the cobblestones, dyeing the workbench orange. The sweet scent of beeswax polish mingles with the smell of freshly shaved walnut wood.

Before me stands a chair that has lived for a hundred years. It is covered in scratches, and its legs are slightly crooked.
“I’ve served my purpose well enough, haven’t I?”
I feel as though it said this, and I stop my hands. Then, I quietly shake my head.

Because it is precisely because of those scars.

Born and raised in Japan, I once feared scars.
To grow old was to lose value. To break was to end. Such thoughts covered me like a thick layer of varnish.

Thirty-two years ago, as if to strip away that varnish, I left Japan. Italy, and then Iran. Changing lands, losing my language, and every time I was wounded, I reconnected myself.

The scars did not disappear. But I learned that deep within them, a quiet light begins to seep through.

To you, who are the vintage of the future.

Chapter 1: Stripping

Twenty-four years old. The moment I stood on the cobblestones of Milan, I thought: I want to live here.

Upon arriving in Rome, I took an unlicensed taxi. I was smiled at by a driver as cool as someone out of a movie, and before I knew it, I had paid an exorbitant fare. It was my first baptism.

My boarding house in Bologna was a small room with bunk beds. As I played with the girl who lived there, I learned the language. Making mistakes, laughing.

In the walled city of Lucca, my host mother said:
“Good furniture can live for hundreds of years if you repair it. It’s an investment.”
That settled it. I would not be a designer, but one who “preserves.”

In the Florence workshop, Maestro Guido laughed at my red nail polish.
“You’re going to fix furniture with those?”

From that day on, my training became a battle with my own skin. Stripping agents and alcohol. They were merciless on my atopic skin. At night, my fingertips would crack and swell, and I couldn’t sleep. Yet, the next morning, I stood in the workshop again.

The scarred furniture slowly breathed back to life. Only in those moments did the pain turn into meaning.

The first payment I received at a workshop in Rome was 600,000 lire. “I can make a living here.” That night, for the first time, I saw the outline of the “life I had chosen.”

Chapter 2: Friction

There was a quiet craftsman I met in Florence. A man who had been forced off his path by revolution and had left university. He was clumsy, prone to silence, and difficult to deal with. But I knew. He was like wood that develops a deep luster when polished.

Eventually, we married, and fifteen years passed. One day, we let go of stability once again. We wanted to show our children their roots.

We loaded up our luggage and traveled thousands of kilometers by land. Tehran, where we arrived, was a city swirling with sound, heat, and the presence of people.

The Persian I faced in my forties was not about accuracy, but “words to bridge the distance.” The night I accidentally called a “guest” a “monkey” and was laughed at by my family. Even that failure brought our relationship closer.
There, jet-black veils and colorful dresses existed side by side.

One night, in a country where alcohol is forbidden, our kitchen became a small brewery. A bottle burst, and red liquid spread across the floor. The smell of wine I wiped up in terror was life itself. Laughter and anxiety were in the same room.

My hands, which no longer held tools, were simply soaking up the heat of the naan my mother-in-law tore and handed to me, and the small palms of my children gripping my fingers back. The “heat” of living people, which I had forgotten back when I was fighting with wood in Florence.

During those days when I was away from restoration, my hands only etched into memory the warmth of a family that would never break.

But now, I stand frozen before the news reaching me from that place. Beyond the smoke shown on television, I desperately search for the faces of those I once laughed with and shared naan with. Due to the government's internet restrictions, I cannot even contact my family and friends there. Only a sense of helpless anxiety fills the silence of the workshop.

A restorer can fix wood.

But no technique can bring back stolen time.

And lives lost are, in the first place, outside the scope of the word 'restoration'.

There are nights when I can do nothing but pray.

Chapter 3: Fruition

When I returned to Florence, I ended up taking over the workshop that had continued for seventy years. My husband grips the chisel, and our children open the door and come in. That daily life was a rebirth for us. But the world had changed.

I once held paper job advertisements and walked from door to door knocking. Now, my daughter is connected to the world from the sofa. In that lightness, I think about the flow of the times.

And then, one day, a thought suddenly crosses my mind. About the time I reunited with my parents after eight years. For just a moment, I wondered if my choices had been right.

My father said,

'The day you said you were going to Italy, it felt as if you had been ordered to commit seppuku...'

Those words are still stuck deep in my chest.

The words 'I'm sorry' were on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn't bring myself to say them.

Because if I said them, it would mean denying all the days I had chosen to walk. I could only silently watch my father's back, which had become much smaller than before.

That decision hurt someone.
Even so, I had no choice but to take responsibility for the life I chose for myself.

Now, the work in the workshop is stable, the children have grown, and I am living my days hand-in-hand with my husband. I am standing in a place where I can finally say I am happy. But at the same time, I know.

The life you choose always makes you lose something.

Epilogue

Before I knew it, thirty-two years had passed. The hands in the mirror bear the traces of the time I have spent carving. They are not marks of what was lost, but proof of having lived.

In the world of antiques, there is no such thing as 'too late'.
Scars are not meant to be hidden; they are meant to be preserved.

Once, I was covered in a thick layer of varnish.
What covers me now is not layers of varnish.

It is only the scars of thirty-two years and the patina that has accumulated upon them.

Italy taught me about time.

Iran taught me about chaos and the heat of life.

And perhaps Japan was quietly teaching me the beauty of imperfection.

To you, who have finished reading this story.

What is it that you wish to fix right now?

I am polishing a chair again today.

Without being able to fix everything, I continue to move my hands nonetheless.

In lieu of an afterword

Finally, I would be happy if you could listen to this story in my own voice.

This story was not born overnight. Its origin lies in my 'thirty-two-year logbook,' which I have been writing from last winter through this spring.

In reshaping it into its current form, I took apart all twelve previous chapters. I stripped away the excess words as if removing old varnish, added new memories that I had kept tucked away deep in my heart, and wrote this work as if applying a fresh coat of oil.

If there is anyone who wishes to touch the more unrefined, clumsy fragments of the days behind this story, please take a look at this magazine as well. The path I have walked may reach you with a more multi-layered texture.

A Thirty-Two-Year Logbook: Crossing Three Borders—My Life Restoration Record

[Chapter 1: Stripping]

[Chapter 2: Friction]

[Chapter 3: Fruition]

What shapes me now is not a finished beauty. It is the accumulation of 'scars and luster'—the result of making mistakes, being sanded down, and repainting over and over again.

May the vintage that is your life also shine with a beautiful light one day.

Buon cammino! (May you have a wonderful journey, true to yourself!)

From my workshop in Florence, with gratitude.

Micchi