thursday's child: wabi sabi

when mr c and i were in the hamptons we stumbled into a store in sag harbor and fell in love. rough wooden floors provided the stage for simple furniture covered in taupe’s and beige's. chunky pieces of drift wood suspended from simple wire hung from whitewashed, vaulted ceilings and served as shelving for gently folded clothes. funky earthen bowls stacked neatly on a harvest table were honored by the black and white photographs of local images dotting the walls.

it was a wabi sabi wonderland (ok, a rich people's wabi sabi...but still wabi sabi)

pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. it's simple, slow, and uncluttered and above all, it reveres authenticity. wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered.

i only learned of this phrase a couple of months ago...
but my mom taught me elements of this when i was a child....
i just didn't have a name for it then. 

i remember waking up early to go to "tag sales" in ohio, excitedly rushing home to show my grandfather our little finds and later feeling giddy over some treasure mom and i  discovered on one of our many antiquing expeditions....

wabi sabi is flea market finds, not michigan ave purchases. it celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. it reminds us that we are all transient beings, that our bodies as well as the material world around us are fleeting. through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace wrinkles and rust, grey hairs and frayed edges and the march of time they represent. it's a fragmentary glimpse of the part, not the whole, the journey not the destination.

so bring the outdoors in, shop markets for once loved items, create a sacred space in your home and learn to embrace flaws….

flaws in things, flaws in others and most importantly

 in yourself.

because really...."flaws" are beautiful.

namaste ~ mrs m