Month: November 2016

Tonight on the train, an old man – and I’m not sure if he even knew about my knee hurting – offered me a seat, instead of taking it himself. I did not take it, yet he encouraged me again. Fortunately another seat across the way was now open, as well, so I took that one, and let the old man have his nearby seat. Nonetheless, an old man offered me his seat. I was and still am honored.

 

Day 40 of 40

To my newest friends,

Thank you.

Thank you for leaving me always feeling loved, wanted, and appreciated, as well as intellectually challenged and improved.  For unfailingly creating a space where I am not only allowed, but invited, to be exactly who I am and whoever I need to be at that time, I thank you.  You are a beautiful and excited duo, forever inspiring joy within me – I cannot say how often I find myself chuckling at the millions of little nothings with you guys (which truly make a world of a difference in a week filled with a million little and big stresses).  Thanks to the two of you, no matter how my week goes, at the end of it, I always know that the best is yet to come.

You easily bring other wonderful people into my life, as well as into the lives of others, developing the spirit of love and connection on which our world thrives.  You enliven the old, and educate the young; and even educate the old, and enliven the young.  I have watched it and experienced it firsthand, almost every time I am with you.

For what feels like a million cups of tea, which you practically poof into my hands at times, as though some secret grandma senses tell you that I need something warm and loving, I cannot possibly thank you enough (though I shall continue to thank you every time).

Thank you for being there for me, whenever I show up, and in whatever state I happen to be – you have thereby transformed my world, and likely many others’.

For being exactly yourselves, I thank you – you are both truly beautiful assets to the world, as well as to my life in particular.  Friday is not my possibly favorite day, because it starts the weekend, but because it ends with you.

For all this and more, I thank you.  A million times over, and then again twice, thank you.  🙂

Peace
Hannah

 

 

Day 39 of 40

Lately, I have a sort of perpetual look of having just cried.  It isn’t all the time, exactly… but almost all of the time I’m at work, anyway.  I don’t know when it started, really, but I know that I’ve been noticing it at work every time I look  in the mirror.  It’s never the case at home, or out elsewhere, but constantly so at work.  I wonder if it is the fact that mornings have somehow become incredibly difficult for me recently.

I used to dislike being up so early in the mornings (5:30 alarm was my late alarm back in Houston), but I still got myself up and out, and had a great day.  Here, however, my alarm is 6:45, and I never want to get up.  Once I finally do get up, I very much dislike moving about – getting dressed, making breakfast, making and packing my lunch, and brushing my teeth are all sorts of annoyances to me, and things my mind resists doing most days.  Basically, anything that has me be ready to walk out the door, is something I seem to want not to do each morning.

And why is this so?  I think it’s because my body is tired of the trip to work.  I used to ride much farther to get to school on some days (11-ish miles max and 2-3-ish miles minimum one direction), and I was completely okay with that.  So what has changed?  The difference I notice is twofold. 1) It was flat, easy riding almost the entire way before, and now the ride is packed with difficult hills the entire trek (yes, it is a trek, instead of a ride, now).  2) It was optional before, and is a requirement now.

When it’s an easy, but long ride, what’s the big deal?  Nothing.  When it’s a difficult ride, no matter the distance/length, what’s comforting about that just after waking up, and getting ready to begin the day?  Nothing.  (Haha – I see what I did there.)

Also, when it is optional to ride, and driving is available (aka no effort and no sweat (literally)), then I get to enjoy every day of riding, and take a break when I find I need a break.  But being obligatory completely alters the situation – I’m not doing it each day because I want to do it, but because I must do it.  When my knees hurt and it’s freezing cold rain outside, I still have to ride those blasted hills, and hope I don’t get sick (Although, really, I had hoped I would get sick the last time that happened, because then I could have stayed home a few days and not had to ride…, but I didn’t get sick from it (just of it).).

So, what do I do now?  I’m really not sure.  I started looking into license information, considering getting a license and a sort of moped, but the search was not so fruitful.  I think I’ll try again, though.  I don’t currently see another option that actually makes sense (aside from quitting my job, of course, but that’s not really part of the agreement I made i coming here, so I’d rather not do that for the sake of my word… however, I would do it if I knew there were something amazing I could start doing instead… just like with anything else that is mediocre, when something amazing comes along.), so I’ll stick with this endeavor for now, and see where it can get me.

Of course, this means I have to get over my averseness to getting to know life here, and possibly/likely enjoying it all.  One day at a time, I suppose… so, what shall I do today after work? (Ugh, gag… guess I’m not moving too quickly on that one yet.  But I must persevere, because life is beautiful, even if parts of it totally suck, yeah?  Mmhmm.  Yeah.  Yes.)  😉

 

Day 38 of 40

I was gone for a few days, and now the world seems so different.  Fall has truly begun, with piles of Pringles potato chips scattered all around the roadsides, as trees shake off their summer dos.  Once they pop, they just can’t stop, you see… and I do see it.  I watch them with a sort of envy, even. (And a slight hunger, if it’s the right time of day… but that’s not quite the point here – just a small part of it all.)

As I biked past today, I found myself almost annoyed with them all, those beautiful yellowy crisps, being so beautiful and serene and content… and exotic, even.  It was as though they belonged to a movie, I realized – a really fabulous movie, definitely including a girl who has her life together, and whom everyone just finds to be totally amazing, and whom we all envy -, and I so wanted to be in it.  Because, even if I weren’t that girl, I would get to live life with that girl, thereby guaranteeing my life to be fabulous and worth sharing with the world (Duh, it’s in a movie, after all).

Every so often, I find myself in a particular sort of rut.  Not a bad one, per se, but a rut nonetheless – going nowhere, and not residing in a particularly comfortable or pleasurable place for the time being.  During this time, I watch movie after movie.  I watch them often enough, that I can’t even decide which movie I want to watch after a while, because I don’t necessarily want to watch a movie… the whole reason I am watching the movies, is because I want what they have, and what I don’t have.

It varies as to what specifically I am wanting, but it is always the same:  I want something in my life, so I watch a movie to help me feel as though I have achieved whatever that something is.  Financial stability, a partner in life, friends who love and bug me nonstop, somewhere to hang out with people I love after a rough day… the list goes onward and upward, for sure, making for a not-so-fun time when I realize that I don’t have anything that these movies have, yet I want it so badly.

And what do I do whenever I find myself in these ruts?  Well, I tend to ignore it for a bit, and be lazy, continuing to watch the movies.  However, once I begin reaching the point of stopping movies within the first half hour, to switch to a different movie, I start to consider what else to do with myself and my life and my time.  If no movie is ‘doing it for me’, then I clearly don’t want a movie, but want something different… so, let’s do something different.  Let’s paint.  Or listen to music.  Or play music.  Or practice singing.  Or do some of that yoga whose frequency you’ve been wanting to increase.

Yeah… stuff like that.  The best one, though, is going to do something that scares me.  Not like, “Oh, my, I’m going to die,” kind of scare, but just something that frightens me in my life.  Once it was trying out a longboard.  Another time it was going up to a stranger, and telling her that I found her incredibly beautiful.  This time, I think it might be finishing unpacking completely, and going to the gym I recently joined (especially now that I have indoor gym shoes, even though I’m totally freaked about going, though I’m not yet sure why (That’s the next thing for me to consider: Why am I afraid to do them in the first place?)).

Well, I feel as though there is no real closing, closure, conclusion to ease one’s mind for this piece, but that’s okay – sometimes things are finished, even though we don’t go through the whole traditional procedure and pattern and whatnot… I’m off to sleep, and I hope to clear up whatever is in the way for my going to the gym and unpacking tomorrow, because, even though I totally don’t want to do either one, I so want to do them both.  I’m just letting my concerns stop me.  So, may tonight be the last semi-compulsory movie night, and may tomorrow be the beginning of my being more fit each and every day.  😀  Yes.

 

Day 36 of 40

One of those small, yet extreme, delights in life?  A hot shower and some clean clothes to put on after a loooong day-night-day of travel.  🙂  Home, at last.

 

Day 35 of 40

Waiting on the platform for the train to arrive, I noticed some odd noises coming from the escalators.  When I turned round to see, I found a tall Japanese boy (estimated age 16-20) stepping delightedly down off the up escalator.  Seeing as the train platform was lower than the rest of the station, the only direction to go from here was up.  However, this boy had just stepped off the up escalator onto the platform.  A couple of other people had noticed this, too, and were watching with somewhat disturbed expressions.

At first, I thought something had gone wrong.  Then I discovered that the guy had just stepped onto the escalator for the fun of walking back off of it in the opposite direction of what is intended.  More than that, though, I noticed, as he delighted extremely in his next mini-ride on the escalator, that this boy’s brain did not quite work as the average person’s.

I could not identify if it were a sort of autism or something else entirely, but it was clear that this boy did not experience the world as those immediately around him did.  It was clear, too, that no one else was at all enjoying his behavior.  I stood there, watching, and discovered myself delighted and smiling, watching him repeatedly step onto the escalator, turn round, and rush back off the escalator, making an odd sort of guffaw each time he made it safely to the concrete (the initial odd sound I’d heard).

I almost went up to him to ask him if he was enjoying himself, but I really didn’t feel like moving.  (No offense intended; I was just exhausted, and am even more so now).  He was just totally enjoying himself.

 

 

Day 34 of 40

It’s funny to me how the idea of “home” works.  Sometimes it’s the people who make a place feel like home, and sometimes it’s the things.  Sometimes it’s simply the smells, and sometimes it’s just the location.  I suppose this suggests a ringing true of the idea that ‘home is where the heart is’, though I’m not set on the idea.  I think I feel as though home is just what you make it.  If you want something or someone to feel like home to you, you can get to know that something or someone, and bring yourself closer to it or him/her.

Though I think there is a sort of vulnerability required in it all.  If you open yourself up – be vulnerable – , you are able to develop a sense of trust and love with that place or person.  If you let down your guard, that place or person can see you for who you really are… and thereby accept you and love you for who you truly are.  If someone never experiences who you truly are, how can that person ever truly love you?  However, if that person can see you underneath it all, and accepts you as just that and nothing else, then that person can love you truly.  It is with this love, that I feel allows for the development of “home” in anyone’s adjective list (i.e. for one to feel ‘at home’ with someone).

I think it can be ridiculously terrifying to let down one’s guard – I struggle with it regularly.  I think, too, though, that we make it easier and easier each time we do it.  Perhaps it takes a lifetime to be fully comfortable with being open and free and loving with all, such that one could feel at home wherever he/she went.  The more we practice it, though, the more we are loved and are able to love, and the more we better the world, and develop more “homes” around the globe.

 

 

Day 33 of 40

I like to smell rosemary trees. The little ones, especially, which look like miniature Christmas trees, give me delight. I could fall asleep, my face stuck into one, eyes closed, inhaling the scent – it’s just so relaxing. And they automatically remind me of winter, which is still associated with Winter Break from school/work, and family time for Christmas & New Year’s.

And, speaking of relaxing, I got two good back rubs tonight during family time, which were very relaxing. And they weren’t the massaging kind, so much as the dog-rubbing kind. I completely passed out during the second one, and woke up maybe half an hour later… just like a little pup. 🙂

Fun facts of the day complete for today – I don’t feel like writing more right now, I’m so tired. Until next time, dear world/void.

Day 32 of 40