SleepersWake

I awoke today with a realization.  This makes sense to me, probably not you, but if you’re game and want to know about it or me in some great depth, here you go!

Since the trip to my son’s wedding a month ago, things of sort of fallen apart.
I am behind on rent. The car blew up on the way back (not literally, but the engine went in a way that it was trashed) and we had to buy a new one ON THE ROAD, but we may have lucked out with our new van.

I haven’t been able to work very much. I’ve had work, but I’m on a continual procrastination. This is come under control in the last few days, but it’s still always iffy.

I have slipped from my diet several times, and the body always feels like crap when I do. I made the remark to my friend Warren yesterday that “the body really likes the diet, but I don’t very much.” That’s pretty true.

I have been doing fruit salad. Found a good cantaloupe first, then added the old the pie I found on sale, and the old mango that needed eating. Then came a pineapple and two new mangoes. Today I added grapes and a fresh banana. Nice. Fruit really leads me back into the diet and it actually feels like cheating.

Last night, I did my normal popcorn binge before Dr. Strange, but it was a medium instead of a huge.

Oh God,, words are too clunky.

[Rusty post picture taken at old Hull Nike installation]

Watched a Japanese furniture maker doc & the concept of wabi-sabi has hit home.

“Subtle imperfections, or signs of age and weathering are prized. They inspire the viewer to contemplate the passage of time and the imperfect nature of life. A truly beautiful object should inspire a feeling of serene loneliness and quiet self reflection. In Japanese, this aesthetic is called Wabi Sabi.”

If embraced, this can make my feeling about life transform, just like getting the “Photographic eye.”  I know how to do that!

In reading the Wikipedia entry for this, I mentally smelled, for an immediately recognizable instant, the wood and pipe tobacco smell of my grandfather’s shop. Precious. The automatic tears weren’t far behind.

That perfection, which I know, has not been passed to my son. Gone in 4 generations.

The opposite of Wabi-sabi, by Paul A. Runyon, my grandfather. This is 7 or 8 inches tall.

The idea of perfection has maybe destroyed my life in many ways.

The words wabi and sabi do not translate easily. Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote Tofrom society; sabi meant “chill”, “lean” or “withered”. Around the 14th century these meanings began to change, taking on more positive connotations.[2] Wabi now connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.

To see any wear or weathering on my Grandfather’s work would be an abomination. In the world of wabi-sabi, perhaps my Grandfather’s work is an abomination.

Ken Heitz’s work would certainly embrace wabi-sabi because it’s rustic furniture.  These 2 men and the memories of their shops have set up a sort of cognition-mind-bomb for me, which is coming together in this post.

There is more here, and I will keep looking at this and report my findings.