Preorder Time for Shibui: The Japanese Art of Finding Beauty in Aging

Yes. Another book. This one feels extra auspicious because it’s my 13th book in my 13th year since I started this book-making adventure. If you can’t tell, 13 is my lucky number (I was born on a day with that much maligned number).

I can’t even begin to express how extraordinary it is to see the physical, actuality of this book that almost never came to be. But that story is for another day.

Let me start by saying that I have been feeling the impacts of the passage of time — psychically, emotionally, physiologically, interpersonally — for a good while now, and the topic of how to age well has been top of mind. I landed on this Japanese word Shibui to anchor the book’s theme because it defines a kind of loveliness that can only be revealed with time. A simple, unassuming, gentle yet refined kind of beauty.

The book is a collection of illustrated essays about aging from various lenses: health, relationships, wealth, purpose, and of course, beauty. Interspersed are Japanese ideologies and concepts that I found relevant and edifying in my own pursuit of aging with vitality and meaning and beauty. And by beauty, it’s something I’ve determined on my own terms.

I’ve wanted to write and illustrate a book of essays (that isn’t sewing related) for decades, and I feel so, so, SO lucky. I’m a big believer in putting dreams out into the ether, keeping an eye out for glimpses of opportunity, then reaching out to see if the opportunity will lead somewhere — the key is to do it all without clenching onto and demanding certain outcomes. It’s not easy. I’m still not very good at it, but sometimes I manage this seemingly impossible combination. And lo! We have a book of illustrated essays that is exactly what I’d hoped it would be: a slim volume of what seems to matter most to age well, based on my fifty-four years of living on this earth, accentuated with hand-painted watercolor illustrations.

Shibui is available for preorder now! The official launch date is November 4th, and I have fun news about launch parties and other events to share in the very near future. Stay tuned!