I’ve decided to start a new occasional series. From time to time I come across humans who just astound me with their whimsy. They do something a bit off-beat. A bit you’re-not-meant-to-do-that. I’ve noticed there’s usually One Thing that prompted them, or motivates them, or keeps them happy and therefore whimsical. I’m always busting to tap them on the shoulder and ask, “What’s your One Thing”. Now I do here. To kick off…

This week I do things at the wrong time

Photo by Lee Price

I take disproportionate delight from eating non-breakfast food at breakfast. This morning I ate mashed pumpkin with garlic. Sometimes I eat grilled sardines on lentils. Once I ate lamb chops.

In the comfortable, middle-class world I inhabit, such deviations feel like perverse acts of rebellion.  My grandmother, for 65 years, used to put out two Weet-bix in a bowl every night ready for breakfast in the morning. Bless Grandmother’s gentle soul, but my non-breakfasts say booyah to that!

Doing things at the right – or conventional – time can make sense. Turning up to weddings at the time specified by the bride and groom is always good. And getting your bikini line waxed is best done mid-afternoon, a week after your period, when the skin is least sensitive.

But this week I played with the idea that doing stuff when you’re not meant to is a tidy way to inject joy into life. At a purely pragmatic level doing things out of step with the masses is efficient. In the book Buy Ketchup In May And Fly At Noon, Marc Di Vincenzo makes the case for eating out at restaurants on Tuesdays

Wabi sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection. That statement in itself makes me happy. Observing it is a meditation and a tool for keeping life cool. And whimsicaly creative. I’m playing with it at the moment as I write. It’s proving a nifty little tool!

Image by tamara lichtenstein

Wabi stems from the word wa, which refers to harmony, peace, tranquility and balance. Sabi, by itself, means “the bloom of time. Through wabi-sabi we learn to embrace our scars, rust, uneven finishes and the “bloom” of time they represent.

I found this post on eco salon about living a wabi sabi life: “Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind.”

Ways to get wabi sabi with it today?

• pick some flowers from the side of the road and play with them until you find a nicely discordant arrangment. Stick em in a jam jar.
• take 2 or 3 old toys or heirlooms you’ve hung onto, stored in a box, and arrange them on the mantlepeice.
• make a “still life salad”…

I see Ben around a bit. He lives down the road. He’s  a great-grandfather and he’s lived in Bondi most of his life.

Ben makes me smile because he has a thing he does. Mid-mornings. after he’s taken his great-granddaughter to school, he comes out to the road and sits in his little car and reads in the sun.

He wear Superman nylon boxers and a tweed driving cap. And leaves the door ajar even though the street is a busy one. He reads mostly historical fiction and Sidney Sheldon. But 9 out of ten times I see him, he’s not reading, he’s snoozing.

So cute. Ben’s found his spot.

Which is a spot that isn’t meant to be ideal, but because of this, it becomes more than ideal.

There’s a bunch of old women in North Bondi who, every summer afternoon, sit out on flimsy beach furniture and share a beer in the tiny driveway outside their block of flats. They could walk 100m to the beach and have a view and a breeze. But the randomness of their spot works for them.

I was once doing this massive bike ride in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney. I suddenly had an urge to stop at this spot. It was just a spot on the track. Not picturesque. I sat my bike down and lay on the rocky ground, my head propped on a log. I didn’t bother to take off my helmet. And I fell asleep for ten glorious minutes, with ants crawling all over me and twigs sticking into my bum. Never have I met a sweeter, sunnier spot. It was because of the rocks, the log, the wrongness of it that made it sooooo good.

A spot can just be random. But it becomes a favourite because it works. The randomness of it. The wrongness of it. It makes it whimsical and special.

You found your spot?

Happy Easter to all of you. I’m not doing much. My mission is to stay nice and still. My family back in Canberra is not doing much on account of, well, being a bit funeraled out. Friends are off up the coast with inlaws…

There’s a certain satisfaction to be derived from not doing what you’re meant to be doing, or not doing what everyone else is doing. I can get panicky at these times…thinking I’m missing out on grand trips to beach houses and big roast dinner celebrations with family. But, honestly, I’d prefer to do that kind of thing when other people aren’t.

One of these kids is doing their own thing!

Instead, I’m going bush running on Sunday (my favourite thing in the world to do) – just me and a map shoved down my running top. And reading a Jilly Cooper novel. Which is just so trashtastic.

Some things that interested me this week, and might you.

1. This picture of Mick Jagger. He has an eagerness in his eyes that I connect to.

2. This radish, strawberry and goats cheese salad from Cannelle et Vanille…crisp and bitter-sweet and pretty.

3. President Obama gets prayers sent to his Blackberry. So do I, from DailyOm. They are uncannily poignant and hit nails on heads all the time. I chatted to Madisyn who writes these little spiritual musings last week. Interesting fact: she gets her insights by setting aside Tuesdays to meditate and get flooded with ideas. She meditates with a notebook next to her and just feels where the world is at. You can check out today’s insight at the icon to the right there on my page.

4. The Elegance of the Hedgehog – a book that makes my heart just soar – has been made into a movie, out July 8. See the trailer.

5. They say in journalism, always be good to the copy kid (or work experience chick)…because they’ll probably wind up your boss. Or posting an interview about you on their clever blog, as Sarah at Wordsmith Lane did this week.
6. This video for “70 million,” by the band Hold Your Horses is divine.

And a perfect, perfect, perfect moment in whimsy. The tune is to skip to.  Enjoy!

A very quick one because I’m about to jump in the car and drive South for my Uncle Pete’s funeral at Broulee. His ashes are being scattered out to sea, which is where he lived most of his life (he was a prawn trawlerer and surfboard shaper and dude who got shipwrecked and attacked by sharks). Big. And Sad. And Full of Life…

But a few little things of joy and interest:

1. This little poppet and her bunny ears, for sale (the ears) from Les Zigouis.