Wabi-Sabi

For a short season, Lindsay and I lived in Central Oregon, on a small compound two blocks from the Deschutes River. We were renting a one-bedroom ADU from Amanda, a teacher, and her partner Kyle, a general contractor who has potty-trained all three of their sons on construction sites. Eventually, Kyle recruited us to help him build a pizza oven in the backyard, made out of leftover materials he collected from different jobs. 

Early in the project, we made a grave error – while pouring concrete! Kyle just shook his head and muttered, “wabi-sabi.” It’s a Japanese phrase that means there’s beauty in our mistakes. After Kyle translated the term, my perfectionist tendencies took a backseat. Even better, Kyle refused to compartmentalize it. This was great news because when it was time for dinner, he made me the guy in charge of rotating the pies every few minutes. 

I dropped dough and overcooked a few. Even burned a hole in one! “wabi-sabi!” Kyle yelled each time, laughing like a college kid at his first kegger. Sure enough, the taste of each wabi-sabi slice was exquisite. At Kyle’s pizza oven, my healing and recovery found a new flavor. Wabi-sabi signed the permission slip for me to screw-up. It stripped me of the pressure to be perfect. It poured concrete all over my codependency.