I read an article in one of my mother-in-law’s lady magazines about the Wabi Sabi approach to life. The gist of the article was letting things go and accepting imperfection. If your friends judge you because your house isn’t spotless, find new friends. Which is pretty much my philosophy already. A few years ago Ed Young published a picture book about Wabi Sabi so I was familiar with the idea, I was just surprised to come across it in reference to not doing housework. I wish we had a team of house sprites who would clean the house while we slept. There is always something that needs to be done around the house and maintaining a marginally respectable level of cleanliness is time consuming. Plus, everything just gets messy again so fast. Add a busy, messy kid and an old furry mutt and something’s gotta’ give.
Inside our house it may be a fright, but the outside is transforming for the better. The dingy, telephone pole-colored deck is getting a whitewash. What a difference! Standing on my deck is going to feel like a Cape Cod morning. I am somewhat obsessed with working on it now – it’s a pretty big job and I want to be finished by June, before the morning glories start to climb. I even got up early to work on it yesterday. Bob is unnerved by my moxie, but it’s easy to get out of bed at 6 on a sunny spring morning. It’s dark winter days that give me trouble.
I have a wabi sabi way of staining the deck: a cursory wipe of the wood to clear the egregious dirt and debris, then stain over anything that remains. The dead bugs will forever be preserved in a lovely shade called “Outdoor White”. When I was a schoolgirl touring the Rhode Island state house, a tour guide pointed up towards a smudge in the building’s dome. A hundred years earlier, someone took my wabi sabi painting style to an exteme when they brushed layers of paint over a dead bird. My memory of the other details of that tour are faded – I vaguely recall a room with lots of silver and china on display?? The part about seeing the dead bird, though? That’s something you don’t forget. I’ll bet I am not the only Rhode Islander who can tell that exact story.
Rhode Island’s state flower is the violet, and I know why.
They grow in cracks in the pavement. How is that not beautiful?
My neighbor was complaining about what a pain in the ass they are – they spread everywhere! I choose to regard that as one of their charms: beautiful flowers that grow with no help from me in rocky, inhospitable soil. If they grow somewhere I don’t want them to, I dig them up and replant them. Wabi sabi.
I am determined not to let the yard get out of hand this summer. Last year’s garden was in distress by midsummer because I overplanted. It looked so spacious when I planted baby zucchini, cucumber, and tomato plants. Babies sure do grow up fast, though.
Silas is sitting next to a worm and worms help gardens grow. And you thought it was just a gratuitous baby picture.
The big trees in our yard are great, but their shade makes finding suitable garden space difficult. This year’s plan is to grow tomatoes in containers in the middle of the yard, zucchini in the small garden patch, and herbs in containers and a window box. Maybe leafy greens in a small baby pool on the deck? I’d like to try growing root vegetables but I just don’t have space. Perhaps beans on a pole instead.
Bob’s a little disturbed that I’m excited about planting a bush on Minnie’s grave because she is going to make great compost. I don’t see what’s wrong with that…we are all going to die someday, and isn’t it nice to be part of the life cycle, even after death? Minnie’s personality was like a flower when she was alive, and now she will BE a flower. Becoming one with nature, and all that. Iron and Wine says it better than me:
The Mudyard 