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Wa__sabi | The Maladroit Wife
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Wa__sabi

6 Aug


My husband doesn’t understand these predicaments, either.

The aforementioned Friend K had a really cool post that has had me thinking for a couple weeks.  She said that her house is “wabi-sabi,” which not the same as my favorite green goo for sushi.

It’s not as tasty, and takes at least as long to get used to.  My favorite translation of it is Mess.  K says is “the acceptance of transience, of seeing the beauty in something that is imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete.”  I did a little wikihomework on the subject, and also liked how they summed it up… “[It] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”

The house I live in is fine.  Not wabi-sabi in the slightest, and in fact it could use a little more of that.  It was built in 2001, the walls are straight enough, and the carpet is only lightly stained.  I think it’s my life that is wabi-sabi.  Discuss…

Nothing lasts?  I guess I don’t think of material things that way, it’s more that I always have this hourglass in the back of my mind… “Like sands through the hourglass…”  How many times did I hear THAT during pre-employment summers?  More times than my mom wants to know.  For me, time is what doesn’t last.  My favorite moments of gin and tonics on the patio seem very temporary.  Fleeting, even!  My inability to work efficiently could have something to do with it, but as it stands, I feel like days, especially the good ones, go by too quickly.

Nothing is finished?  SERIOUSLY.  Nothing, unless it’s a pizza or a cheeseburger, is ever finished.  I have a special collection of garments at the bottom of my laundry basket that do not get washed.  I don’t ever have the right load to throw them in with, nor do I ever feel it is a “good time” to do a load of hand-washing.

Nor am I good at line drying…
This gives me a little bit of a complex about some things, but this wabi-sabi thing wants me to just accept that the dusting might get done, but not the vacuuming.  Practical application: I’m having a sizeable party this weekend, and it’s just not possible to be “ready” for such a thing.  There’s a pretty constant back and forth in my head that goes a little like, “Agh!  Nothing is done!” and then, “Nobody will notice that you haven’t rotated the picture frames in… ever.”  And so on.

Nothing is perfect?  Well, I think we all KNOW that, but sometimes that doesn’t make it easy.  When Friend B first moved into the apartment that neither of us knew would define our relationship, it was white.  White walls, white carpet, white furniture.  I had spent about 30 seconds in Leiden and the house I stayed in had light wood and white everything else.  Very cool, I thought, so I tried to recreate it in my carpeted suburban apartment.  Fail.  Friend B took my concerned self down to the Home Depot, and we picked out a purple (called “Sassy Pants” or somesuch), a tomato red, and a blue and a green for her room and bathroom that she would later decide was sort of lurid.  Oh well.  The living room was purple, the kitchen was red, and they were connected so it was just a lot of stuff happening that disturbed my sensibilities.

See?  Disturbing.  Lurid.  I’m pretty used to it now.
Note: several years later, my parents would apply the first coat of colored paint their house had seen since 1986.  Good work, Friend B, you even got to the root of the problem.  Don’t even get me started on how she started on the arrangements of knick knacks that were not in a Straight Line or hanging pictures without Using A Level.

More on wabi-sabi… Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.  Generally, I like it.  I think it’s a great model for working with what you have, going with the flow, and not falling into the ginormous trap of the Crate & Barrel catalog of Things I Don’t Have But Totally Need.  I have everything I need, none of it is perfect, I am not finished, and time doesn’t last.  So I guess I’ll have a gin and tonic!

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2 Responses to “Wa__sabi”


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