Encompassing Chaos

The past many days -- more than a week, but not back into early February -- have been boiling over with chaos. Oddly, though, I have not become overwhelmed. Such ubiquitous chaos in the past would have thrown me for a loop, upset my applecart, and caused any number and variety of untoward reactions (take all that, A Way With Words team!!!).

What was all this chaos and why? Well, it's winter, so there's lots of dirty snow tracked into the house on the dog's feet that I can't keep up with. I kept up with the online drawing course I wrote about in the last post. I met with my colleague to set up work goals for the next few weeks. I published recipes and blog posts (though not on the designated day) to my website. I attended two community events. I chose to fit in two GI screenings and cortisone shots in both hands just before leaving on a solo 10-day, 4-state, car-to-air-to-car trip. The trip is solo because relatives are flying in for a visit from yet a fifth state before I return home, so I also planned and partially executed three dinners for them, stored in the freezer with detailed labels for my husband. And on top of all this, I listened and watched the political mess that is drastically increasing the entropy extant all over the world.

Along with all of the above, I happened to read the Fall 2019 article by Julie Pointer Adams in The Magnolia Journal (Meredith Corporations) about the wabi-sabi embrace of chaos in everyday life. I think her words must have sunken into my subconscious deeply enough to encourage a mellow acceptance of the imperfection and disarray in my life that ordinarily would have stirred up angst. The concept of wabi-sabi was new to me. At first, I likened it feng shui, which I studied years ago and have always attempted to incorporate in whatever space I occupy. I researched the meaning of both concepts and discovered that, while conceivably in tune with one another, the two concepts describe different life constructs.

Good-old Wikipedia describes the Japanese ideal of wabi-sabi as the "rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness... or understated elegance" of wabi and the "beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of [an] object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs" of sabi. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wabi-sabi&oldid=934292149) On the other hand, feng shui is "a traditional practice originating from ancient China, which claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment." (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feng_shui&oldid=943900029)

Mentally melding the two constructs, I think I envisioned myself as the object: something simply rustic, imperfectly impermanent, that's slowly eroding while leaving a serenely aging patina. OK -- I guess I can live with that! How can I complain if unseen energy forces are helping me to be in harmony with the ever-changing jumble around me? I'm tickled that I can sometimes describe myself as being "mellow" or "serene" as I encompass the impermanent imperfection of the world's chaos into the veneer of my life.