Imperfection

I recently drove a ways to get to a meeting of a group I was considering joining.  I got lost (twice) and barely had time to stop at the hotel before getting to the meeting.  I was the first one there, thought it might have been moved, gave what I was afraid might have been a too spontaneous presentation and was concerned I might have put the wrong foot forward at the after meeting get-together.  These concerns escalated when, after returning home, I I sent out emails to some of my new acquaintances and they didn't respond right away. Do I even need to add that after another day or two I did get positive responses to my emails?

Nowadays, we’re all obsessed with perfection. I don’t mean the kind of perfection found in a beautiful sunset or a favorite painting or even a long, leisurely walk in the woods with someone we care about.  I mean the kind of perfection involving a snappy presentation, perfect elocution and carefully crafted “authentic” message.  I guess what I’m talking about is a kind of branding.

Polish and presentation seem all important and encompass clothes,conversation, associations, trips to the supermarket and, of course, business events and our work at the office.   And that’s not counting the branding involved in the quest for the perfect SAT score, exemplary mate and perfect hair. This last used to be reserved for females, but  is so no longer.

With the internet and social media everything is visible and we have to take stock, measure up and modestly show off our accomplishments and personality.  And we feel we need to do it fast. When we see something on the internet, even if it took hours, days or even longer to put together, we can access it in a flash.  And we think we have to respond in kind. Sometimes it’s all a little overwhelming, like being on a carousel that never stops that we’re responsible for keeping in motion. It makes me want to take a deep breath and run away.I know it was ever thus, but now it seems more dizzying than ever.

Somehow, in trying to calm down and relax about all this, I was reminded of the Japanese idea of Wabi-Sabi, which is about finding the beauty in imperfect things; a beauty that comes from their imperfection. There’s something .refreshing in that idea – especially when we apply it to ourselves.. After all, we can't become perfect.

I don’t mean to use necessary imperfection as an excuse not to do the best we can in our undertakings.  But ,as long as we don’t take the Wabi-Sabi idea and turn it into a new ideal to “live up to” but rather use it to remind ourselves that perfection is an impossible and destructive ideal, it can help us accept ourselves for what we are, delightfully imperfect.

Let It Be Fat

 “If you eat pork, let it be fat,” my father, Laurence (Larry) Israel Housman translated from the Yiddish so I could understand.  Yiddish was my father's first language growing up in Flatbush Brooklyn, although his only accent was a Brooklyn one. Another expression of his was "Don't be a question mark, be an exclamation point."

He wanted me, a quiet, introspective girl with her nose buried in books to embrace whatever I did with a full heart, even when it was wrong. The advice was great. But even better was what he showed and taught me.

He showed me how to feed squirrels in Riverside Park by tapping on the stone and pebble fence with a peanut in its shell to get them to come to me; taught me  how to pick out a good, second-hand novel and to eat kippers at breakfast on Sunday. He taught me how to fold the New York Times properly (lengthwise in columns) how to stand in a subway car without falling down (bend your knees and sway), and the pleasures of very long, leisurely walks from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Greenwich Village.  Also how to bait a hook and fishing as meditation.

He introduced me to the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields., Sherlock Holmes (I've been a Baker Street Irregular ever since) jumbo kosher beef hot dogs, and pistachio ice cream.

He adored my mother and believed she was the best thing that ever happened to him. He proposed to her by writing the names of their future children on a napkin in a Chinese restaurant. They were married three months after they met. They would dance around our living room to Cole Porter’s Songbook sung by Ella Fitzgerald. And by the way, he adored me too.

He believed in judging people by their acts, not their beliefs and did anonymous kindnesses quietly. He wasn't especially correct (at least at home). After a proper dinner served on china and a woven tablecloth at our dining table, he'd lie on the floor in the living room, loosen his belt and discourse and debate with guests, distinguished and not. He knew how to behave when dining out in his Brooks Brothers style attire with business associates or going out to dinner with friends. But at home? He just didn't want to. I was embarrassed as a teenager. Now I cherish those memories.

He relished chatting with people he encountered in the course of the day even if he didn't know them and arguing about politics with an old friend over lunch. These debates became a tradition almost a ritual part of their friendship, like his browsing in bookstores with me and his dances with my mother.

As I grew older, I introduced him to Japanese food, my first serious boyfriend and feminism. There were moments of tension  and conflict but always great love.

Then I moved to France and we only saw each other twice a year, once a year when I came home and once a year when my parents came to visit. Only at the end of his final visit did he tell me he saw what I found special in Paris. I'm glad he finally did since it helped us share something I cared about. 

I haven't mentioned it yet but he loved children, not just his one beloved daughter, all children. He could play with them endlessly.  Unfortunately, he died too young to meet his grandson, whom he would have adored, spoiled and played with like crazy.

When I have a big decision to make, especially an emotional one, I frequently think of him and that gives me strength. And I probably wouldn't be writing at all without his influence. He was one of a kind.

I miss you a lot dad.  Happy Father's Day.

Why I Love Chopsticks

I love chopsticks, not the tune a lot of us learned to play on the piano when we were very young but the eating instruments.  Not the plastic kind with ridges seen in budget Chinese restaurants that have red characters imprinted on them at one end, not the ornately carved ivory ones found in souvenir shops and at the backs of cavernous Chinese grocery stores and not even the high style modernist one chopsticks found in hip stores selling food accessories for the high-end minimalist consumer. No, I love the plain, wooden, rectangular chopsticks that come in a snug paper wrapper that I learned to use about the same time I learned to bang out "chopsticks" on the piano.

 Some wrappers have Chinese symbols or Japanese ones and colorful designs and some don't.  When you slide them out of the wrapper and pull them apart you're ready to go. I use them for stirring vegetables on the stove (but not scrambled eggs) to eat cottage cheese and stir fried meat and vegetables and bits of chicken both shredded and chunked, rice, frozen entrees and almost anything that does not need cutting or spooning to be consumed. They're not good for ice cream, or soup or steak unless it's in small, bite-sized pieces.

 I use them to poke food to see if it's ready to eat and to twirl pasta.  And I don't know why.  How do you explain love?  I do know it doesn't have much to do with learning to use them when I was little when Sunday lunch was spent with my grandmother at Chinese restaurants.  We went to old style "Cantonese" restaurants before people became sophisticated about Chinese food and discovered Szechuan and Hunan and all kinds of other stuff and learned to order what they saw people of Asian descent ordering. My grandmother always ordered "shrimp with lobster sauce" which is probably as close to what people eat in China as pizza is. My parents and I ordered all sorts of things. The chopsticks were one of the high points of the meal(visiting with my maternal grandmother was not) but I left them alone the rest of the week.

 I started to use them a lot in my 20's when I first started doing cooking regularly and some of it was Asian, but that's not why I love using them for everything I can.  It has something more to do with the taste of wooden chopsticks and their feel in my hand and against my teeth.  And  it has something to do with their rectangular shape and unpretentious nature.  No one ever chose wooden chopsticks for a wedding registry.No one cares about how heavy they are or if they're sterling silver.  I just use them and throw them out and get new ones and I know I should care more about wasting trees,by using them but I love them anyway.  And when I see them I want to smile.