Tag: wabi sabi

Keepsake Chest

An object near and dear to my heart happens to be a tattered keepsake chest that I was given as a child. I’ve had it in all of my bedrooms since I can remember. When I first moved from the city to the suburbs I was only three years old and barely remember the transition. But as I got older the chest became the thing that stored my baby blankets, my favorite shirts, (to hide from my sister), and anything that I just didn’t want to share. It was the most personal thing to me. It was the most tangible constant. Through the years I’ve moved about three times, not included a shift from one bedroom in my current house to a larger bedroom.

The old damaged chest has always felt like a necessity. I find that Lambeth’s mindset of beauty within asymmetry or understanding “everything that persists is whole” is incredibly honest and accurately explained. It is also relatable in terms of bond, connection and values. Japanese philosophy known as Wabi Sabi “considers that fallen leaves carry more meaning than those still on the tree” which is why my chest could never be replaced in any way other than a practical sense. It is a reminder that even imperfect things have purpose.

Wabi Sabi as it applies to my life

It’s a simple example, however in all aspects of my life I like to keep a balance of organization and disorganization. My room, for example, will probably appear as a disorganized mess to the outsider looking in, however I like to live life by the moto, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Just because there is a lot of stuff (everything I own in one small box I call a bedroom) it is cluttered, but it remains organized. My backpack is another good example of this. All of the books are organized by size and everything has a specific place for itself, but once you open up the notebooks it is difficult for the outsider to sort through and understand all the scribbled notes.

              I enjoyed the insertion of “wabi sabi” in the article because I had not heard of it before. I enjoy the concept because it “insists upon asymmetry and imperfection,” as Lambeth stated in her article. I consider many things throughout my daily life to have a bit of wabi sabi in them.

My Stuffed Animal

An object of mine that always makes me think of beauty in imperfection is my stuffed animal rabbit that I’ve had since my childhood. My rabbit would follow me everywhere I traveled: on long vacations, trips to the grocery store, and every night when I would go to sleep. With every journey my rabbit has been on, it has started to look less and less like an actual rabbit. It has become ripped, lost almost all of its stuffing, and rather than being short and round, it is now long and skinny. I’ve tucked my rabbit away in my closet for years now, but every now and then I stumble upon it when I clean and can’t help but feel all the memories of my childhood flood back. I think of all the family vacations, how each rip and tear got there, and of how this stuffed animal embodies my entire childhood in just one tangled object.

            A particular quote that stood out to me while reading Lambeth’s piece was that of which discussed wabi sabi and its meaning. “Wabi sabi, the Japanese aesthetic philosophy closely tied to Zen Buddhism, insists upon asymmetry and imperfection, aware that these are signs of life’s impermanence and decay. In wabi sabi, fallen leaves may carry more meaning than those still on the tree…” (Lambeth, Three-Legged Dog). This quote makes me think of the impermanence of childhood I can see when looking at this stuffed animal, as well as the meaning that lies within it. I find that there is much more meaning in this torn stuffed animal than there could be in a perfectly stitched rabbit.

Class, Wed, 9/04

Using WordPress

Please create a free account on WordPress.com. I suggest you use your first name and last initial (e.g., “Joe H”) as your “Public Display Name”.

I will send an invitation to contribute to this site to your Udel email. (The sender of the email will probably be listed as WordPress.) Please accept this invitation immediately. Stay logged in to WordPress.

Responding to Lambeth

Fastwrite

Please write a ¶ about a memory or object that holds beauty for you because of its “asymmetry and imperfection”. Then write another ¶ in which you relate your thoughts to Lambeth’s. Try to quote at least once from Lambeth’s piece. Copy and save your text.

Laurie Clements Lambeth, with Patou. Photo by Ian Lambeth.

Posting Your Response

  1. Go to this site (https://e367fall2019.home.blog/). If you have accepted my invitation to contribute, you should see a button on the upper righthand corner that says +Write. (If you don’t see this, click on the My Sites button on the upper lefthand corner, and then click on Posts.) A text box should appear.
  2. Paste your response into the text box. Check formatting (headings, italics, spacing, etc.).
  3. Think of a good title for your piece. Type that into the Title Bar.
  4. Choose Responses as your Category. Uncheck any other boxes.
  5. Think of two or three Tags that will help identify your piece from the others posted. (You’ll thus want something more specific in addition to “Wabi Sabi” and “Lambeth”.)
  6. Hit Publish. If there’s something you don’t like about your post, you can click on Edit, make changes, and Update.

This will be the process you’ll want to follow in posting your responses to readings for this course. Don’t worry. The steps quickly become routine.

Of Interest

To Do

  1. Fri, 9/06, class: Read “Arts of the Contact Zone” by Mary Louise Pratt. This is a challenging but also rewarding piece. I’ll want to discuss what Pratt means by contact zone, autoethnography, and asymmetrical relations of power. I’ll also be interested in hearing your thoughts about Pratt’s attempts to connect the experiences of Guaman Poma with those of her young son.
  2. Mon, 9/09, class: Read Arlie Hochschild’s “Empathy Maps”. I will lead our discussion.
  3. Mon, 9/09, 4:00 pm: Group A posts responses to Babara Mellix’s “From Outside, In”.
  4. Tues, 9/10, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group A’s responses (along with Mellix, of course) and posts comments on at least two.
  5. Wed, 9/11, class: We will use those responses and comments to structure our class discussion of Mellix.

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