Author: hannah.ananas

Shower heads and Showers

There is something about a shower that feels almost life-saving.  I was in a huge sort of panic, which kept increasing in intensity as time passed, the other night, and I just felt like the world of my life was a decided failure and blah, blah, blah. I arranged with a friend to talk briefly about this, but she still had to finish something else first.  I, having just arrived home, and needing only to shower and prep for bed, took a quick shower while waiting for my friend to finish up her things.

I went into it almost shaking with concern and nerves, yet came out of it just stressed a bit.  No more feelings of insanity or utter failure remained.  Yes, I was still a bit down and out, and yes, I was still concerned about my somewhat immediate future.  But my experience of life was completely transformed from before the shower.  I was essentially a hot mess about to break down before the shower, and I came out calm and just somewhat stressed about things.

I remember putting my face under the shower head, feeling the individual streams of water clink onto my face in what felt like a hundred different individual places – in that moment, everything else disappeared.  It was almost as though my brain took a break from really existing for a few seconds, and all focus and attention was freely and passively noticing these streams of water hitting my face, stimulating something refreshing within and all over my body.  Nothing existed outside of that moment of cleansing.  For a few breaths, I was free (so much so, that I couldn’t even have told you from what or that I was free).

The rest of the shower typically seems to be the same for me – just a shower.  But the effects of it all were immense. 

Post-a-day 2017

My feet sit still

I have been sitting here for over an hour, not going home.  The semi-excuse was that I was talking with my mom, but the phone call has finished, and here I still sit.  I also had a high level (for me) of caffeine this afternoon, and so I wanted to get the jitters out as much as possible, while I still had the chance to walk around outside and all.  Now I feel the sleepy sliding into place, wishing me to bed.

And yet, here I still sit.

I do not know if I am afraid of tomorrow, and am letting that stop me from ending today, or if I am afraid of tomorrow, but have some other reason that I still sit here on my little piece of green-light-backed bench.  Either way, I can see clearly that I am afraid of tomorrow beginning.  I leave in 12 days, and the planning I didn’t want to do would be coming into effect now, if I had done the planning.  Instead, the events are all floating around, wondering if and when they will be accomplished by me.  I can almost see the Super Smash-like challenge at play around me, each item fighting happily for a place on my life this week and next.  But they all have so many lives, it is taking forever to figure out who ranks where – the current lowest position might still come through and win the whole thing in another 40 lives.

It is such a beautiful night right now, right here, I want to keep it.  I want to roll into a hammock out here in the plaza, and sleep with the cool breeze brushing and rocking me all night, clouds floating slowly by above me, and slight coty noises rumbling off and on in the nearby distance.

But, even still, I don’t want to close my eyes.  I don’t specifically have a desire to remain here on this bench. I also don’t specifically have a desire to walk the block home or to go to bed.  It is not apathy necessarily.  I just can’t figure out what feeling is there.  Because I know that there is something there…

And so I sit, writing this, and taking my time to do so, pausing so as. It to finish and have no other reason good enough to keep me here on this bench.  Here, I am intentionally on my own, alone.  Once I move onward, that will not be the case.  While I am here, there is not much of anything for me to do but to sit and to enjoy.  Once I move onward, again, that will not be the case.

…

However, the plaza decided for me just now, as it turned off its lights.  No longer is my bench wall green, and no longer are the ground lights shining.  The plaza now sleeps, and I accept that as encouragement enough to send me home.  I still do not want to go, but I certainly prefer that to being in trouble with the security guard who already stared me down earlier, when all the lights were still glowing.

Anyway… yeah…

Post-a-day 2017

Oxymorons and Dichotomies of clothes

I simultaneously want to live a simplistic, minimalistic-esque life, and one in a huge house, with lots of awesome things in it.

How do I go about making that happen?

Well, I don’t know.  However, I have a feeling that my best friend would simply say that I’ll find a way somehow – I always seem to do so with whatever comes up in life.  Don’t know how?  Well, I figure it out anyway, and make it happen.  So she claims, and I mostly agree with her.

Perhaps this is a perfect time to apply this thinking to my current state of affairs (i.e. Minimal money, needing insurance for the first time when I move to the US next month, needing a place to live, needing to find good work for after my temporary position ends around the end of September, and how to get rid of so much stuff that I know I have waiting for me in a packed room at my mom’s house.).  Yes, I think it is.

Post-a-day 2017

But… those are mine – the things we do for love <3

Girls and bracelets.  Seems like a rather simple topic, right?  Just girls and bracelets.  Nothing special.  Today, however, they were both special.

It was my last day going by the school where I have been based this past year.  A student had been in touch to find out this information, and so knew that I was going to be there today in the morning.  When I arrived at my (well, it’s not my former desk, but I guess it must have still been mine, since the stuff all on it was for me) desk, I was surprised by a small and adorable (because Japan) pile of wrapped gifts.  Each one had a different note and was from someone different, both teachers and students.  They all surprised me, but the one that got me ready for tears was the one on a beautiful piece of Rapunzel Disney (C) paper, with “Love” tape to attach it to the pink bag.  It read:

Dear Hannah
Present for you.

From Nono, Yuna

These were the two main trumpet players in the band at school, the two with whom I had spent bits of time here and there, just listening to them play, chatting with them, having lunch with them, taking photos with and of them, letting them paint me (yes, they painted my arms one day), giving them fun jazz (which they had never heard!) music to play, and also playing trumpet with them.  Of course, I am going to miss these two dearly.

However, I never quite expected a present from them.  Let alone the nice little Japanese mirror, charm, and coin purse (or maybe it’s for makeup, even).  They’re designed to go with the whole yukata/kimono getup, and I had never found ones to go with mine.  So it was essentially a perfect going-away present for me!  And they had no idea.  They were just being sweet and giving me something Japanese.

So, a short time later, they show up to the teachers’ room and ask for me.  I rush over to them and shove them out of the teachers’ room in a hurry – no one else needs to be part of this little celebration-slash-goodbye ordeal that’s about to go down.

With the two are a handful of other girls from the band, too.  I thank them eagerly (Is that right?  Let me check… “eager, avid, keen, anxious, athirst mean moved by a strong and urgent desire or interest. eager implies ardor and enthusiasm and sometimes impatience at delay or restraint,” says merriam-webster.com, so I accept it as appropriate in this case.), and give hugs all around.  Some embrace the american social norm, and others delight in it hesitantly, but they all hug me with joy and enthusiasm.  I will miss these guys, runs through my head as we’re all chatting and being silly together, and I know my thought is right.  I will miss them desperately, and I know they will miss me, too.  The simple fact that my successor is not even musically inclined shows the unlikelihood of their finding a replacement-ish for me, and the fact that I am leaving Japan almost guarantees that I couldn’t even begin to find a sort of replacement for all of them.

As we are wrapping things up, so that they can go eat before they have to be back at band rehearsal (to which I had been listening earlier on in the morning, secretly), I notice yet again a comment directed at my shins-ankles-feet region.  i couldn’t hear what was said, as it wasn’t said to me.  Each time it happened, the comment was almost whispered to another girl, just quietly enough that I couldn’t quite hear.  But I could see.

I wondered if they were finally noticing how I don’t shave my legs – I kind of gave up shaving… not sure where I’m going with that in life, but it seems to be the current situation.  I am always happy to talk about almost anything with the girls, despite their often being incredibly shy about most things.  So, as I usually do, I encourage the comment to come to the open.

Finally, someone gets the nerve enough to say it aloud, and I am surprised.  It was not, as I thought, anything to do with my hairy legs (it is dirty blonde, after all, so it isn’t all too noticeable in the first place, but I imagine they’re all accustomed to mine already anyway, plus they seem to love the colors in all my various hairs (since they’re not just black, like Japanese people’s)).  What was the comment regarding?  My anklet.

“She… want… it,” was the oh-so-embarrasing phrase.  And oh, what self-searching consideration I had to make all of a sudden – I was amazed at myself at my success in the matter.

And so, as we all hug once more (or twice more) and say our goodbyes, I watch with a huge smile and a chuckle, as three of the girls bounce off wearing my anklet and two bracelets, all of which I had made for myself a couple or few years ago, and all of which I absolutely love wearing.  But, hey, as I told the girls, I made those myself, so I can get some more Mookaite and Jasper stones when I get back to Houston (I might even still have some, actually), and make myself some new versions of those same bracelets and the matching anklet.  Plus, as much as those meant to me, it pales in comparison to how much each now (and likely for the rest of their lives) means to those girls.  As they say in Japanese, one of them told me that it is her “precious treasure”.  I’m not sure they could have been more grateful, even if I had made the bracelets for them specifically.

I still kind of can’t believe those girls got my bracelets and anklet off of me.  But I also love how wonderful it felt to give away a part of myself to those who so greatly longed for a bit of it.  It was more than just giving away something I had with me, because it was 1)something I valued and 2)something I made myself, for myself.  It really was giving away a part of me.  It kind of feels like I’ll be able to take care of them forever, in some small way.  I like that.

Anyway, that was about ten minutes of today.  A really, really good ten minutes.  ðŸ™‚


 

Post-a-day 2017

Why you gotta be so…?

Why are we ever mean to others?  Really, truly… why?  

Can we go Taylor Swift on the situation, and have the cycle end right now?

I see potential in this, but are we brave enough?  Is bravery even what it is that we need?  Perhaps love is all we need.  And not even in the cheesy way, but truly.  Beatles it all the way, because all we need is love.

Post-a-day 2017

Hospitality Notes

I found one of the best notes ever, when I woke up the other morning at my friend’s house.

It was on the counter of the bathroom (technically, the room with the toilet).  It read:

Hannah 1/3

Good Morning!
I have few things to tell you.

  • Please make yourself at home ! ! !  Do not stress your self to worry things.

    2/3

  • Use anything in the house.  Do not buy things you do not bring to U.S.
  • Stay as long as you want.  even after I left for U.S.  I trust you.

    3/3

  • Let S—— out from my bed room after you get up in the morning.  So she can stay at the living room. (for food and water)

I was just delighted when I reached the end of the notes.  They were incredibly southern hospitality and totally Japanese at the same time.  The hearty welcome to make myself at home, combined with the fact that the sticky note pages were labeled with page __ of __.  I loved it (and still do).  I love good friends.

Post-a-day 2017

God, bless me, please

I don’t know what it is, but something has me unconcerned on the whole.  I don’t quite have a place to live after this month.  I don’t quite have a well-enough-paying job as of this week.  I don’t have any health or dental insurance once I move back to Texas next month.  And yet, here I am, trying to get myself worked up, because I am not already concerned about these things. 

Why am I unconcerned?  I don’t know.  There is something in the air though, that tells me that everything is okay, everything will be perfect once I’m back home.  So, I am trusting.  I am keeping an open mind, and I am listening when things come up.

Let us see where this takes me next month…  ðŸ™‚
Post-a-day 2017

The stress…

It is finished.

I am officially out of my old apartment (now it is old, I suppose). As of around ten-ish this morning, I am free of it and obligations relating to that little town.  Sure, I’ll be back up there to visit next week, and to help out with a few things later this week, but that is all voluntary.  My obligations are complete.

And it feels amazing, I’m sure.  It’s just that, as per my usual case, I am painfully ill now.

Whenever I have a short-term, end-in-sight, super-stress time, it is inevitably followed by illness.  And the illness’s intensity just might be linked to the intensity of the stress.  If so, oh, boy – this could be rough.  This time, however, I easily cancelled my plans for tomorrow (and earlier today).  I had one thing tonight that I wanted to make sure I did.  Otherwise, though, I have turned my next 36+ hours into sleep, water, and rest time.  I hope it saves me.
Post-a-day 2017

Don’t play favorites?

We grow up always hearing about not playing favorites.  “Don’t play favorites,” and, “Treat everyone equally,” everyone always seems to say.

And yet, I struggled through the constant questions of “What’s your favorite _______?”   I even made up a favorite color, because I didn’t have one, but people constantly asked what mine was.

What’s more, if we look at it purely on a human perspective, not to play favorites, then does marriage even really work?   Exclusivity in relationships would be impossible.  How could I treat someone else with the same passion, love, care as I do my partner?  And then, how could I treat everyone that way?

How could I have an intimate and loving relationship with my mom, if I am to treat her as I treat all others, despite the fact that I spend most of my childhood with her, and not the rest of the world?

I’m not looking to cancel exclusivity or marriage or anything, here.  I’m just wondering at our concepts of ‘treat everyone equally’ and ‘don’t play favorites’.  There seems to me to be a sort of inconsistency in the thinking here – something is missing in our mentality, and I want it to come beautifully to light to save the day… something like that, anyway. 😛

Post-a-day 2017