All my renovations are imperfect. It’s not the money, or the obvious head scratching decisions of previous owners, though those contribute to much of the chagrin one experiences. It’s more than that. Even if the home were new, and all the decisions that contributed to its construction were mine – I am not perfect, so it would not be.

My friend Julie sent me an email saying she’d heard about this concept – Wabi Sabi – isn’t that a beautiful sounding word? Upon learning of it, she thought it would help me with the pile of imperfections I had faced, and those I still had to contend with, well, with grace.

I love a research project so I started right away. It’s origin can be traced to Japan. The two words, divorced from one another, are rather sad. Together though, they have taken on a the poetry any great philosophy, which to my mind, is sublime. It has ties to Buddhism, whose wisdom is derived from making peace with the transitory and the imperfect. The unheroic nature of being human.

Beauty then is balanced, enhanced even by the mistakes and damages, the ruined parts of the design, be it material or human, are incorporated into the object, the person, making them unique, contrasting the light to the darkness. Enhancing the appreciation, which in the absence of the imperfections, go unnoticed. Isn’t that just the puckeriest lemondade turned sweet?

Happy Saturday.