My Wabi Sabi Journey

I’ve always been the kind of person who saw potential in an old, decrepit dresser or a rusty decorative metal bracket. Writing is my first love, but history is right up there with it. As they say, history is prologue. As individuals and a society, we need to know what formed us in order to understand ourselves and the world now and figure out how best to go forward.

In my twenties, I was broke began transforming old, neglected furniture for my apartment and later did the same for a charity shop. I’d strip and refinish cherry, walnut and maple pieces whose old lacquer finish had gone bad or had their gorgeous grains hidden by paint. Other pieces I decoupaged, created mosaics on or played with color and pattern. Each one had a story and I loved being part of a rickety chair moldering in a basement having a new life as a sturdy conversation piece.

The charity shop gave me a wonderful gift every time one of my creations sold. They wrote down why someone was drawn to it and how they would use it. A woman once bought two of my desks, one Moroccan themed and the other sponge painted, after divorcing a house full of metal and glass, her ex’s taste. I’ve kept every one of those scalloped edged notes about where my transformed pieces were going to live. In writing, as in life, people have both inner and outer motivations. One day, while reading a novel, a character said something like, ‘Everyone I know who salvages old furniture and turns it into something amazing had a terrible childhood. I think it’s part of needing to believe that anything can be saved, even themselves.’

That really hit home, no pun intended. Although I think I was aware of that, I hadn’t put it into words or focused on it. My adventures in furniture were not just about saving the piece and giving it new life and purpose. It was about believing that whatever is banged up and unloved, be it furniture or people, can become whole again, thrive and, as the Navajo say, walk in beauty. I once took an art class titled Wabi-Sabi Mixed Media. The instructor was an accomplished artist as well as a friend with an amazing spirit. She is always growing, playing with new techniques and materials and in awe of the happy surprises in her art and life. She seemed at peace with herself and the hand she was dealt. I admired that and wanted to get back there myself.

Before signing on, I looked up the unfamiliar words. Wabi-Sabi, it turned out, is not just a form of art, but an entire philosophy of life. It’s about reveling in life’s simple pleasures and seeing the beauty in imperfections. Embracing change and age as constants we cannot control and appreciating and being happy with what we have. The term Wabi-Sabi captured the things I treasured as well as how I try to live my life. I’m drawn to the wartiest pumpkin for Halloween and a colorful bouquet of flowers and greens from around our yard will always mean more and be lovelier to me than an expensive, perfect dozen red roses.

Despite being tuned in to Wabi-Sabi in some areas, ironically, I continued to seek perfection in my writing. In another lifetime, I had two essays broadcast on public radio and several articles published in local, regional and national magazines. Although my fiction didn’t fare as well, at one point I did have a literary agent and an editor at a respected imprint interested in my young adult novel. For over a decade now, I’ve been beavering away, honing my writing skills, waiting for the perfect draft and for the stars to align. I haven’t sent anything out into the world for way too long.

Three events on the periphery of my life recently jarred me into action. The sudden death of a friend of a friend, a neighbor’s son diagnosed with MS in his thirties, and an acquaintance having a debilitating stroke in his forties. The bottom line is that life could change in a second. I don’t want to risk popping off before I share my hard won insights that might help others.

As the Jewish proverb goes, “If not now, when?” If I wait until my manuscripts are perfect or I feel like I have enough support to do something brave or difficult, will the time ever seem right? I needed to plunge in and make a start. Put my work out there again. It wasn’t only about writing though. I needed to stop putting off everything important to me, like going to Italy to experience where grandparents grew up and my ancestry stretches back several centuries. Another lifelong dream I made a priority was to figure out how to expand my sense of the world and possibility by exploring living abroad for a few months or even a year. I decided to put it out there, research, talk to people and see where it goes. I need to give myself chances.

I just returned from what turned out to be a seminal trip to Italy. Those three weeks both deepened and altered my understanding of myself and my family and freed me from the sticky strands of my childhood to set out on this new course. Italy, with its colorful old buildings and frescoes, the age-rounded edges of the cobblestones underfoot and the taste implosion of each meal’s simple, natural, fresh ingredients, is a culture that embodies the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.

Maybe your journey has been smoother or rougher than mine. Each has an emotional tone, an almost palpable texture, and conflicting emotions that push and pull us away from or toward understanding. Maybe you have been to the land of your ancestors, or your family may have come to live here so long ago that you need only go across town, or within the US to get a sense of their lives, map the same night sky, walk the old part of a city or glimpse the sun on a somehow familiar mountainside. Maybe your people came here so long ago that the food, traditions, language and spiritual background of your ancestors was never part of your life. Wherever you are right now or have been, I think we all seek a better understanding of our identity at some point, wondering who we are and how we or our family came to be the way they are.

So the first subject I’ll explore on this site is my journey to Italy, beginning with my trip to the Italian Embassy in Philadelphia, about seven weeks before I left. Like the countdown to a space shuttle liftoff, that was when everything began to heat up and coalesce.

Wherever you are on your journey to figure out your own story, heal or create your own path to making your unique contribution in this world, maybe you’d like, for a few minutes, to come along on mine…