Leaning Your Life Into A Little Wabi-Sabi

There is a coffee table book I have been wanting to buy for about three months now. It’s called Wabi Inspirations by the interior designer Alex Vervoordt but I am still yet to buy it. Partly because my apartment is very small and also because the other person who lives there says we have too many coffee table books. Nevertheless, I Google it from time to time and ponder the day it will be mine. Did I just rhyme? I did. But then I stopped rhyming and thought I could just include it in this newsletter as an indirect hint to my sister, who knows my birthday is coming up. However, there is another reason I bring it up, although it’s not quite as good as the first.

Wabi-Sabi is the Japanese concept defined as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.” Or at least that’s how Collins Dictionary puts it. Wabi is said to be defined as “rustic simplicity” or “understated elegance” while Sabi translates to “taking pleasure in the imperfect”. Together they have become an aesthetic way of life enthusiastically embraced in Japan and beyond. Those who adopt Wabi-Sabi understand that everything in nature is impermanent and imperfection is the natural state of things. Why hide it, or change it? Instead, embrace it. Now when I drop my iPhone, I yell ‘Wabi-Sabi!’ and people look. But I don’t care because I am finally free from my clumsiness. Anyway, I am sidetracked.