WABI SABI

     "I am not perfect," a friend of mine explained to me, with a certaion amount of seeming apology. It's an admission we all end up making to ourselves eventually, that we have limits, that we behave in unbecoming ways we can't always explain, that we cry too easily, or are too happy, or too broke, or too something- always too something.But the irony and the hidden truth is that we actually are perfect; incomprable, torn up and healed over, sensitive, unsure, and all so full of love, all of us, each of us in our own unique way.
     There is nothing more beautiful than true vulnerability: the confession that we simply cannot do everything, or know everything; that we are confused, that we feel lost. "Wabi-Sabi" is the Japanese "art of imperfection." It's a way of seeing and an appreciation for that which is distressed or battered or unbalanced somehow, and we are all unbalanced somehow. It's affection for the old, the odd, the worn and the awkward. And that's the human condition.
     We all have moments where we get on a roll and things come easily to us, effortlessly. But there is no one for whom that is a permanent state. Something always happens to remind us of just that fact. In the midst of a dance, we stumble; in the midst of a speech, our throat catches. We konk our heads and trip over steps and foregt what we were saying, and wake up terrified with our hearts pounding.
     And all of that is "wabi-sabi" and wonderfully human and absolutely perfect, exactly because it is not. I am ok being human today. I can laugh at myself and have compassion when I screw things up. I am imperfect, and I am ok with that.

Perfection lacks appeal. I am grateful to be me.