November 23, 2018

The Depression, Dad, and Wabi-Sabi?
When my Pop was born in 1925, America was about to begin one of the most heart-wrenching eras in it’s history – The Great Depression. Banks would close, stock markets would tumble, and unemployment, especially in the cities, would cripple middle-class America. Food lines, fuel lines, and unemployment lines, seemed to stretch forever in every major city and in every region of the country. Tough times indeed.
However, when a person is already poor, being “more poor”, is just a matter of degree. The Great Depression for folks like my Pop and his hard-scrabble family in the high desert hills and mountains of Modoc County, Califrnia, didn’t change much. As my Pop described it, “The sun still comes up, you still have to find a way to get what you need for ‘that day”, have a sip of bourbon over the soup fire of an evening, and try again the next.” Poor is poor. Every day.
Folks like my Pop had to find a way to make do with whatever they could find, growing up. Nothing was ever bought new, and nothing was off-limits if it could be put to use. These lessons from his childhood carried over for him into fatherhood, and were ingrained in his world view. In my house, and I was born in 1965, Pop used old lead water pipes that he threaded himself, along with a leather pull-string, to make a “shower” over the boat-sized used used bathtub in the washroom. The water closet used an identical leather pull-string, “jimmy-rigged” to gravity feed the flushing water through the system. Don’t ask about the sink faucet – let’s just say it was not “regulation” either.
I”m pretty sure the EPA and other “responsible” agencies looking out for my youthful welfare in such circumstances would have written him a nasty letter or two, or paid him a home visit, had they known. But I’m equally sure Pop would have used those letters to start a refuse burn fire in his old burning barrel. We spent a lot of early mornings getting that fire going, both to keep warm in the cold damp winters while we worked outside or in his shop making needed things out of scrap wood, and just because there’s nothing better than talking over a warm fire. Whether it was old leather, an old car (we had several in the yard), or old “junk” – if there was a potential use, we kept it. One couldn’t know the future, and better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, Pop used to say.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression however. Do not conclude from the above real life history that my home was unfit or unclean. Even though the cupboards were hand-made from old plywood, or old barn wood, they were painted and kept clean. The lawn was mowed, the yard and garden (if you could grow it, why buy it, he would say) were weeded, and we put a fresh coat of side paint on the house every couple of years. Just because it wasn’t new, didn’t mean it wasn’t needed, respected, or taken care of in his house. He took as much pride in his cleanliness as he did with his ingenuity to make something out of seemingly nothing. There was little monetary value in anything in our house, but everything in it had great value nonetheless.
Which brings me to Wabi-Sabi. I”m a lawyer now by trade and often let the things I can’t control, like the decisions of my clients, invade the areas of my life I can control, like my home and personal relationships. In a vain effort to regain some of that perceived control and prove to myself I’m in charge, I have fell victim to the modern impulse to buy something new, nice, and of apparent monetary value, to assuage my feelings and attempt to re-assert that I’m somehow the master of my destiny. Foolishness and wasted money often follow.
In a google-search quest to find some tips and tools for peace and tranquility in the home, I stumbled upon a book called “Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House”, by Robyn Griggs Lawrence. Wabi-Sabi is actually two words. Both are Japanese in origin, with “Wabi” describing an inner state that is free from dissatisfaction, and “Sabi” meaning something along the lines of “the bloom of time.” When combined, they represent an acknowledgement that time passes, nothing is perfect, and all things change. Embrace what is now and know no dissatisfaction. A “wabi-sabi” house, according to the book, revels in the imperfect but functional utility of handmade objects of wood, clay, or old used items, and values such objects over the more perfect and unblemished lines of computer generated plastic or porcelain creations that seem to flood the current marketplace. The book describes the high value placed on old wooden furniture, chipped coffee mugs, a frayed hand-woven rug, and the like. In creating a peaceful home environment, old, used and reused is apparently now all the rage.
As I read that book, I came full circle. I again reflected on my childhood with Pop. Despite its lack of material things, my life and childhood was indeed a peaceful time. By poverty or design, my focus growing up was directed not at acquiring or appreciating perfectly created and expensive items, but rather because those things were absent, my focus and attention was directed to people, relationships, and the little joys of everyday life spent with people who care about you and you them. The simple utility of a working water closet and shower, however crafted, is enough in itself. If the water is hot, it is good.
In my modern fit of self-pity and imagined scarcity, I had forgotten that essential truth. The value of warming your hands over a burn barrel of a morning and sipping coffee from a dented tin cup with your Pop beats having coffee from a perfectly formed porcelain cup in a fancy restaurant, all day and every day. Or a hot shower from an old lead pipe. Everything is imperfect, and all things change. Embrace and make use of the imperfections and enjoy what you have right now.

D.James Clark

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