I’ve always been a work in progress, but I’ve never been comfortable showing it. Sprezzatura, that’s my style.

Sprezzatura (noun): an Italian word, first coined by Baldassare Castiglione when writing about the ideal courtier, described as [having] a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.

When I first learned the word, it felt like a warm wash of light: excitement and relief at finally having a term to describe this exact...tendency. Isn't finding the precise word such a joy? That's me. Looking for precision, for perfection. An originalist (non-legally): getting over attached to how things were, wanting to preserve and save everything. And save everything I did, as a child: in my so-called treasure trove you'll find every scrap of paper that was a note passed in some now-forgotten class, ribbons and wrapping paper for presents long-faded from memory, and a nearly stacked pile of hand paper - you know the stuff you get in restrooms to dry your hands with? Well it wasn't terribly common to get that in public restrooms in Hong Kong where I grew up, and I loved the smell of wet pulp. So I collected the paper hand towels from God-knows-which fancy(-to-me) establishments I visited. I made a conscious effort to stop collecting physical tokens of memory after watching an episode of Hoarders in my late teens.

Here, I'm making a conscious effort to embrace a public display of being a work in progress.