Wabi-sabi
The crack on the bookshelf in the corner, with chipped olive-tinted paint.
The ladybug with just one brown spot, flitting through the grass.
The young mother, holding her child close; with one breast gone, due to cancer.
The ten year old boy who can’t possibly spell his own name, but can dance to tunes.
The jug that looks slightly bent over, almost like the Tower of Pisa.
The angry homeless man on the park corner, cursing at his ill-fortune.
The mail man with the limp, passing by me, with news that there is no new mail.
My own bouts of confusion, sadness and anxiety, as I feel like I’ve messed up something.
Or my lopsided smile, the sparkle in my eyes, and the spontaneous words that flow ineloquently from my heart.
It’s all perfect.
I’m perfect.
Wabi-sabi perfect.
[Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.[1] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin?), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō?), the other two being suffering (苦 ku?) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū?).
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.]
