Finding wabi-sabi in Morocco

Years ago, a friend asked me to go with her to get her first tattoo—and then dared me to get one too.

I'd vowed that I would never get a tattoo. But apparently my resistance to tattoos was weaker than my resistance to passing up a friendly challenge.

After looking at hundreds of images, I kept coming back to a small, imperfect circle called an enso. I knew almost nothing about what it represented. I certainly didn't know that it would eventually become connected, for me, with the philosophy of wabi-sabi.

I simply knew I was drawn to it.

So I had that imperfect circle permanently etched onto the inside of my wrist, with no idea how profoundly its meaning would eventually become woven into my life.

When the life I knew stopped fitting

Years later, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world outside my door while a perfect storm was unfolding inside my own life.

I was working in a job I no longer loved and beginning to consider leaving earlier than I'd planned for the sake of my physical and emotional health. A relationship ended. My father's Alzheimer's progressed, and I found myself carrying responsibility for managing his care.

And somewhere amid all of it, I began questioning my own life.

I was burned out. Physically and mentally exhausted. Depressed. I withdrew and spent a great deal of time alone, trying to understand what had happened to the life I'd built—and what I wanted the life ahead of me to become.

That's when wabi-sabi began to mean something more to me than an interesting philosophy.

Discovering another way of seeing

I started reading everything I could find about wabi-sabi—not simply as a Japanese art or design aesthetic, but as a way of experiencing life.

Wabi-sabi is difficult to define precisely, which may be part of its beauty. At its heart are ideas that felt almost radical to me then: imperfection, impermanence, incompleteness, simplicity, humility, attention to the natural passage of time.

It invited me to stop measuring everything against an ideal version of what it was supposed to be.

Including myself.

That was enormously comforting.

I'd spent much of my life absorbing very different messages about what constituted success: achievement, productivity, possessions, appearance, recognition, always striving toward something better.

Wabi-sabi offered another possibility.

Perhaps a meaningful life didn't require everything to be fixed, finished, optimized, or perfected.

Perhaps there was another way to live.

So, naturally, I did what any recovering perfectionist might do.

I tried to recreate wabi-sabi in my own life.

I simplified my home. I repainted rooms and surrounded myself with subdued earth tones—beige, cream, sage, tan. My wardrobe followed. I cleared things away. I slowed down.

And some of it genuinely helped.

There was more space for introspection. I developed healthier habits. My life became quieter and simpler.

But eventually I had to admit something.

I wasn't as depressed. But I wasn't happy either.

My life felt as dreary as the colors I'd chosen to surround myself with.

Something was missing.

An invitation to Morocco

One of the bright spots during those years was a friendship that began in an online accountability group for female solopreneurs during COVID.

Marjolein lived in the Netherlands, and although we'd never met in person, our friendship continued long after the program ended. Over time, I watched her begin traveling more frequently to Morocco and fall increasingly in love with the country.

Eventually she began dividing her time between the Netherlands and Morocco and building a travel business there.

And she kept inviting me to come.

It took me two years to say yes.

Traveling alone to another continent to meet an internet friend at the Casablanca airport was well outside the carefully constructed comfort zone I'd created for myself.

But eventually I stepped outside it.

And almost immediately after arriving in Morocco, something changed.

Presence without trying

I stopped checking my phone to see what time it was.

I stopped wondering what we were doing next.

My jaw wasn't clenched.

I wasn't mentally racing ahead of myself.

I was simply there.

I was gloriously present, absorbing the sights, sounds, colors, textures, smells, conversations, food, architecture, and activity around me.

It took me a while to recognize what I was experiencing.

Mindfulness.

But not mindfulness as I'd previously understood it.

I wasn't sitting quietly, trying to empty my mind. I wasn't attempting to chase distracting thoughts away like clouds. I wasn't working at being present.

I was experiencing an organic mindfulness that embraced my surroundings rather than requiring me to mentally distance myself from them.

And Morocco gave me a great deal to embrace.

We wandered through medinas and souks alive with people, sound, color, food, textiles, ceramics, leather and metalwork. I watched artisans practice skills passed through generations, creating intricate work largely by hand.

I saw walls marked by weather and time rather than constantly restored to pristine perfection. Handmade pottery carried slight irregularities. Leather softened and darkened with age. Mosaic tiles chipped and surfaces faded.

There was imperfection everywhere.

But there was also extraordinary beauty.

And color.

And craftsmanship

.

And hospitality.

And generosity.

And laughter.

And activity.

And life.

A surprising burst of color and life in a riad hidden at the end of a dark walkway in Marrakech.

Slowly, something began clicking into place.

What I'd been missing

Before Morocco, I had begun to associate living gently with making life quieter.

Simpler.

More restrained.

Less cluttered. Less demanding. Less colorful.

Some of that had been exactly what I needed during a difficult season.

But I'd confused what I needed for healing in that season with what a wabi-sabi life had to look like forever.

Morocco disrupted that assumption.

Here was a place where centuries-old walls and brilliant colors existed side by side. Where exquisite craftsmanship didn't require machine-perfect uniformity. Where beauty could be appreciated without needing to be perfect. Where hospitality brought people together rather than protecting solitude.

Nothing about it felt beige.

And yet so much of what I encountered embodied the very principles of wabi-sabi I'd been trying to understand.

Morocco showed me that simplicity didn't have to mean austerity.

Imperfection didn't require dullness.

Mindfulness didn't require silence.

And living gently did not have to mean making life smaller.

A life could be imperfect and vibrant. Simple and abundant. Peaceful and alive.

That was what I'd been missing.

Finding Wabi Sabi Maroc

Before leaving for Morocco, I'd set an intention for the journey to be life-altering.

It was.

Somewhere between Casablanca and Marrakech, between crowded medinas and quiet courtyards, handmade objects and weathered walls, shared meals and unexpected conversations, the two worlds I'd been holding separately began to come together.

The serene wisdom I'd found in wabi-sabi didn't need to disappear.

It needed life around it.

Color.

Warmth.

Connection.

Participation.

Morocco didn't replace what wabi-sabi had taught me.

It completed something I hadn't realized was incomplete.

By the time I left, I knew I'd found the fusion I'd been searching for without knowing how to name it:

Wabi-sabi, Moroccan-style.

And from that discovery, Wabi Sabi Maroc was born.