71 MAGNOLIA JOURNAL fall 2019
story and photography by JULIE POINTER ADAMS
THE JAPANESE CONCEPT OF WABI-SABI
FINDS BEAUTY IN THE PERFECTLY IMPERFECT
AND EMPOWERS US TO DO THE SAME
WITHIN OUR OWN WALLS.
Wholeness at home—the phrase can easily be mistaken to mean the packaged perfection
we see almost everywhere we turn. It can often feel impossible to escape the notion that
success and fulfillment come from achieving an exemplary home with not a pillow out
of place. But in real life—the life of empty Amazon boxes and untrained puppies and
gear from soccer practice and house-projects-on-the-back-burner-for-months-on-end—
everything moves toward chaos, and there’s something beautifully whole and alive about
that too.
With a newly crawling babe and a beloved but bona fide tornado of a husband in my
own home, nothing says “life is full” like the ever-accumulating piles, the wine-stain
rings on our dining table, or the various pieces of furniture that are perpetually waiting
to be repainted, reupholstered, or replaced. When looking through the lens of popular
perfection, it can feel like the only thing whole at our home is the wholly constant and
expanding list of things that need to be done. That’s what makes the Japanese concept of
wabi-sabi such a welcome remedy to my own crippling view of what perfection looks like,
and to my often unrealistic, aspirational idea of the kind of place my home should be.
Wabi-sabi embraces the chaos of the everyday happenings and objects we so often
try to hide, and instead says, “Yes, I see loveliness there too.” This centuries-old concept
embraces the truth that life is fleeting, fragile, and always changing, and inspires us to
surround ourselves with things that reflect the fullness of our humanity—which inevitably
means welcoming things into our lives and homes that are odd, aging, or seemingly
incomplete. Simply put, wabi-sabi finds beauty in the perfectly imperfect and gives us
freedom to do the same.
WABI-SABI
WHOLENESS
AT HOME
