It’s been an unexpectedly busy July for me even though the world is still in the middle of a pandemic. While my family wasn’t able to do our traditional birthday trip for hubby and me, it has still been a busy time with small lunches and big Zoom calls for the many July celebrants among extended family and among friends. Plus, we had to move house again after just one year of a previous one. Packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning, video calling, message gathering, meal planning, etc.
Old me would have been complaining about how exhausted I am mentally and emotionally. But strangely, I have been able to stay calmer and gentler with myself, better able to slow down, to say no, to simply be.
I think I may have just started my wabi sabi journey, thanks to the wonderful book “Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life” by Beth Kempton which I was so glad to have found in the library last month and finished reading a few weeks before my birthday. It feels like the gift I didn’t know I needed.
Apparently, the Japanese concept of wabi sabi is something deeply ingrained in Japanese society and culture, yet it is also something the Japanese find difficult to transcribe in exact and definite words. In Beth Kempton‘s book, it is described this way.
“Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life” – Beth Kempton
Those three words, even with their negative prefixes, carry so much positivity for me when learned and lived within the concept of wabi sabi.
My Impermanent Address
My family’s most recent house move, just a few weeks ago, is our fourth move in five years. It is exhausting. More often than not, I feel that I can’t complain or that I shouldn’t speak out loud lest I am seen as spoiled and unappreciative of the privileges I’ve been enjoying as a middle-class expat in a First World country. I am grateful for the abundance my family has been blessed with. I am aware that being able to afford these houses and house moves is not something easily possessed by anyone. Yet, there is a price, a darker side, and I know that there are others like me who try to hide their tiredness and sadness that come with every change of street name and zip code.
This most recent house move was an unwilling one, and it made my sadness at this impermanence and lack of control even more keen. My family and I loved our top floor address, our condo’s modern aesthetic, our balcony’s gorgeous panoramic sky views. But of course, being tenants, we were subject to the decision of our landlord to sell the place. So, off we went.
In our new condo, for the first time in almost five years, we’re in a much lower floor and without a balcony. It’s an older building with old aesthetics. Others might say, less premium and less attractive. However, from move-in day and every day since, I’ve been witnessing moments of beauty in nature right outside our windows and just across our street. Trees swaying in the breeze; grey herons, monitor lizards, otters, and turtles in the river next to us; sunsets, joggers, and beachside views in the nearby park.
If I Iook back at all of our house moves with a wabi sabi lens, I realize that every place we’ve lived in has its unique beauty. Whether it’s surrounded by tall trees or taller buildings, loud birds or louder trucks, busy neighbors or busier intersections, a house and its surroundings has its own natural beauty that we can see if our minds and hearts are open to it. I realize that, with all the moving that comes with this expat lifestyle, I am becoming witness to beauty in different places and spaces. And the beauty of these places and spaces stay with me for as long as they live in my memory (and in my photo archives, for when memory eventually fails me).
My Imperfect Self
With wabi sabi, there is acceptance of and appreciation for flaws and imperfections, for the natural wear and tear that come with the passage of time.
“Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life” – Beth Kempton
It was my birthday a few days ago. As I turn a year old, a year further into my middle-aged years and into perimenopause, I am becoming more keenly aware of my flaws: the persistent belly, the increasing grey hairs, the failing memory, the worsening eyesight, and so on (you get the picture, right?). I continue to struggle with self-love, a struggle made worse with the idea that I’m failing in my dream to start a second career after a long break, failing to become a professional writer, published author and successful business owner. Not so sure if I’ve been truly successful in homeschooling either (yep, homeschool self-doubt doesn’t go away even if your eldest child has already graduated from college!).
I would usually beat myself up about these supposed flaws and so-called failures. Despite the years of yoga and strength training, despite the salad dinners and intermittent fasting, my belly persists. Despite the pep talks and self-help books, despite my daily prayers and habit tracking, my writing career is floundering. However, as I find myself starting my journey in learning and living wabi sabi, I am slowly finding a way to give my aging, imperfect self more grace. As I turn a year older, I am finding peace and joy in who I am now. I am grateful that my body allows me to enjoy outings and travel with my family, to cook and clean for our household, to carry grace in prayer and strength in yoga, to relish reading fantasy novels and reflect while writing blog posts. Wabi sabi tells me that as I get older, I become wiser and more beautiful to the world because I have more to give. And this generosity doesn’t require a perfect BMI or resumé.
My Incomplete Birthday
In the days before my birthday, I was feeling a bit sad that it would be an incomplete one: no travel (still in a pandemic with quarantine rules upon return still in place), no eating out (dinner reservations had to suddenly be cancelled because of heightened restrictions that put a ban on dining in at restaurants, food courts and hawker centers), and most of all, no eldest child around (eldest child had to go back to Canada earlier this year to attend in-person classes and finish her college education, and she’s still there right now).
“Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life” – Beth Kempton
After reading the book, I looked up this famous tsukubai in this famous Kyoto temple and I immediately had two thoughts. One, why didn’t I know about this place when I went to Kyoto with my husband for a holiday in 2013? Maybe we could have visited this beautiful place. Second, I DO HAVE EVERYTHING I NEED. Life isn’t about completion; it’s perhaps something I can only truly achieve when I’ve passed on and reunited with my Maker. Birthdays aren’t about getting everything I want or always being physically complete as a family (something I am learning to accept gracefully as a mother of a young adult and a teenager). On my birthday this year, I have my health, the health and safety of my loved ones, the company of my husband and son, the virtual chat with my daughter and online celebrations with family and friends. I have beautiful fresh flowers and delicious cake. I have a fun fantasy book to read and this blog post to write. I have quiet spaces for prayer and rest. I have more than everything I need. I have abundance.