From flower arrangement to the art of arranging life materials
I know a very interesting woman. She spends time on a new thing every year. I am also trying to arrange my life in her way. In this way, we don’t have to divide our time for too many things at the same time but still can learn new things continuously. My recent concerns relate mostly to taking care of our living space. It’s partly my hobby, partly my need, and partly my job.
I once found in the book “Language of wisdom” of Emiko Kato an interesting paragraph:
“I can realize many things about someone’s hobbies and aestheticism according to their living spaces. From the things that are easy to impress people such as bookshelves, lighting systems to the things people rarely take care of such as floor and wall – all speak something. People who don’t pay much attention to decorating their living spaces should stop making excuses for their laziness, that their living spaces are temporary, that they have financial problems, or their naughty kids would play and make everything dirty, etc. Because living in a “home” like this, you cannot relax and don’t have time to take care and nurture your values. It’s said that “Teeth and hair are the most important things when it comes to appearance”. Nowadays, living space is an important element, helping to show personal traits as how your hair or your teeth says about you. So, taking care of your living space is also a method to train your aestheticism and to nurture your soul – you should not do it sloppily!”
Yes! It’s the living space for you and your soul also. You must do it with good care. It’s never too late to start! And the easiest thing is let’s start with a specific thing. I started to learn to arrange flowers because of that.
Because I believe that a comfortable living space should have plants. Living in the city, we don’t have an ideal condition for a big garden, but we might have a terrace, a small garden, a balcony, or a small area in front of the house full of sparkling sunlight. Suppose that we don’t have our own green space, don’t forget that we have our lovely neighbors who love flowers and plants or the pretty flower shops on the way from our workplace to home. Then, we can bring nature into our home and learn to arrange things beautifully. Putting a flower vase in the living room or the kitchen corner will brighten your living space.
I love picking flowers and leaves from the plants my husband is growing on our terrace or walking around our residential area to “steal” flowers from our neighbors’ gardens (of course I just dare to “steal” flowers from lovely neighbors’ houses), then mix them spontaneously. At first, I did that way, then I wanted to arrange flowers more beautifully, I learned about layout, colors in the art of flower arrangement. However, “beauty” is sometimes illogical. And to understand illogical beauty, we need to understand logical beauty – which criteria a beautiful flower vase basically should meet. What’s better than looking for a teacher?!
Mr. Le Quoc Thanh – the owner of the online flower shop The Paru, the first one who instructed me to make the first flower bunch, shared with me about his destiny with flowers, that “My love for flowers is just one of the reasons. Moreover, the great feeling when putting flowers in a whole that you create. The same types, but in the hands of another person will be different, you will make a different result, I will make a different result. All 15 flower vases will be totally different, and my bunch of flowers will totally differ from my first intention”.
You see, even if we spend great effort and care to arrange flowers in our style, flowers still have their own ways. Like us, we carelessly fall in love with someone when passing a street corner, even though we have planned to go another way. We should accept that life always has errors, and be happy to accept an unexpected result. To me, flower arrangement is the art of arranging life materials. Each person has their dream to follow, the relationships to keep, house, car/ motorbike, job, talent, youth, strength, and weakness, etc. If you don’t arrange everything properly in-your-life, isn’t it true that your life will be meaningless?
