How far should we go in our quest for perfection? When do we need to simply call time and decide that enough is good enough? I’m thinking about all this because we’ve recently had a new kitchen fitted. To be honest, we’re still feeling giddy with excitement at having a working kitchen sink and tap. Not to mention a dishwasher. Washing dishes in the bath isn’t the highlight of anyone’s day. I’m so looking forward to using the kitchen without agonising over whether the corners are perfectly mitred and the handles are in the right position. But I know that within a few weeks I won’t know or care. It’ll just go back to being a kitchen.
I blame our ever-demanding consumer society. Advertisers are canny creatures. I have no idea when this kitchen fetishisation started, but it was long before the dominance of social media. Still, I don’t remember my parents ever pulling out a kitchen and starting all over again. Even their appliances seemed to go on forever. My parents-in-law bought an oven when they married in 1955 and it is still going strong and looking wonderfully retro in the family cottage in northern Ontario. It seems entirely at home there. So, I am now officially opting out and will never again embark on a kitchen renovation. It’ll become increasingly weather-beaten and scruffy, a bit like the people who use it. Although I like to think of it as taking on the patina of age. Perfection is so dull.
The Japanese know a thing or two about imperfection. They embrace the art of kintsugi: repairing cracked pottery with silver or gold lacquer, highlighting the flaws rather than trying to hide them. The result is a uniquely imperfect piece, made newly beautiful. A little bit of googling reveals that it’s based on the Zen Buddhist philosophy of wabi-sabi, which might sound like it’s an accompaniment for sushi, but is in fact an acceptance that everything is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It’s all sounding wonderfully restful.
This lack of perfection can usefully be applied to Christmas preparations. I once heard someone say that Christmas is a trick played on middle-aged women, who end up doing just about everything and are then too exhausted to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Now I have entered my autumnal years, I refuse to be tricked any more. Fewer presents, more fun. Bought mince pies rather than home-made Nanaimo bars (that sweet and complicated treat known only to Canadians). And I will never ever again make my own Christmas wreath. Feelings of Zen-like calm are already lapping over me. Bring on the wabi-sabi I say.
I – could – not – agree – more!
There speaks a woman who recently went through the same thing!
Yes, totally agree. Perfection is highly overrated! Personally, I think failing eyesight is nature’s cunning ploy to make older people happy with a bit of dust and stuff as they can’t see it. I say ‘they’ as I definitely don’t include myself in the ‘older’ bracket … 🤣🤣🤣
Definitely not! Old people are invariably 10 years older than you.