family – Page 22 – hannah ananas

The Music

What would I be without music?

So many vocabulary words, concepts, and emotional states were learned through Disney songs in my childhood… that free, full, and flying experience I feel in so much of John Denver’s music… the inner pain of Jim Croce’s “Operator”… the joyful youth found through Backstreet Boys and N’Sync… the easy, fun anger of Avril Lavigne… the empowering, flowing connection with the divine found in so many religious and spiritual songs… the calm, determination I find in Enya… the uplifting tears of “Claire de lune” (on piano, not orchestra)… the fears felt in Fantasia 2000… the hoppy joy of Steve Martin on the banjo… the expression of my own anguish, released in Superchick’s “Beauty from Pain”… the community through loss in The Dixie Chicks’ “Travelin’ Soldier”… the rush of delight up my spine from “Rhapsody in Blue”… and every emotion I have ever known, each found in this song or another, somewhere perfectly expressed…, if even in my own music… dancing allowed and encouraged by music… connecting with others through music, through making music together, through sharing music… spoken languages learned through music… things memorized, facts and stories learned through music… not to mention the constant whistling…

I don’t know where or what I would be without music, but I cannot imagine it would be much of a place worth being…, and I cannot see myself anywhere in it – so much of who I am is from and found in music…

It is, in a way, my life… music…

That and gelato… 😛

Nah, that’s just a joke, but it reminded me of the lovely stracciatella I discovered in Rome, which is something I would like to bring back into my life. 😛

Joking aside, though, much of my life has been formed by music… so many memories of listening to and eventually singing along to musicals in the car with my mom when I was little, playing music with my extended family at gatherings, listening to music with my tape player or walkman or CD player during car rides, dancing – especially dancing – all the time… these are all precious memories for me, and they all are, though it may seem unlikely, moments that impacted who I was and who I became out of the situation… and strongly so…

Music is everywhere for me; around me, within me… it is a huge part of who I am.

And I am extremely grateful for it.

There is so much more I would like to say on this specific topic, but, after a three and a half hour distraction that started at 22:58 tonight, I really just need to go to sleep, instead… so, I finish for now with the following:

And I say thank you for the music

The songs we’re singin’

Thanks for all the joy we’re bringin’

Who can live without it,

I ask in all honesty

What would life be

Without a song or a dance

What are we

So, I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me

-ABBA

Post-a-day 2020

Shower time(!!!)

Showers.

There are two things that have been on my mind regarding showers tonight.

Naturally, as is the case with all amazing ideas that arise in the shower, I’ve forgotten one or the other at least five times since they first came to me while I was showering half an hour ago…

Fortunately, though, I got them both back safely into my consciousness, and wrote them down before I could forget again.

The first: Shower buddies.

Whenever the idea of showering with someone is portrayed in film or television, in books, or even in conversation, it is almost exclusively approached as an erotic experience.

The same is true with physically exploring another’s body – it is never never anything but an arousing, erotic experience for both (or all) parties involved.

But why must they be so?

There is a photo – simultaneously dreadful and adorable – of me as a baby, climbing carefully into the shower to join my dad, my bum covered in you-know-what (Obviously, my mom had a sense of humor about it.)… we got to be shower buddies, sharing the space and showering simultaneously, my dad and I.

When I was older, but still a child, I had minimal space in the house that was ever granted to me entirely – that is to say, nowhere was guaranteed to be my own space for long.

This, of course, included the toilet and the shower. (Yes, I have this one terrible memory of sitting on the toilet while my sister showered, and my brother walked in and told me to scoot forward, because he needed to pee… I am proud of 7-year-old me for refusing…. but I digress…)

Whenever my sisters needed to shower, they got to shower.

If I was already preparing to shower, it was no matter, they just hopped on in with me and adjusted the water to their preferred temperature (quite hotter than I liked it, actually).

At first, they had me shower with them in order to make sure I was showering and to show me how to shower properly (I didn’t exactly love showering or bathing as a younger child).

Eventually, though, I turned into more of a coincidental affair that no one really minded, and that I actually found fun.

In one sense, I enjoyed learning how my older sisters showered and how their bodies were – though, to be fair, they already walked around in towels or half-naked or naked for an hour or so after every shower anyway – and, in another, I enjoyed the fun of sharing an event with someone and in such an intimate, one-on-one way.

It might sound a bit absurd, but it really was a fun event for me as a child.

At my mom’s house, it was only ever an exchange of space – she would finish and step out of the shower, and I would step directly into it, without turning anything off.

But, at my dad’s house, it was all too common that I would end up showering alongside at least one of my sisters… and I loved it.

Fast-forward to grown-up days.

I really would love to be able to have a shower buddy again.

Bathing at all the onsen in Japan, I learned to appreciate the human body even more than I had before, and especially to appreciate nudity not as something wrong or weird, but as something that is natural and that merely has a certain time and place in society.

I also learned to be comfortable with my own naked body… and to be comfortable with my own naked body around other people… and to be comfortable with my own body around my friends and their own naked bodies…

I guess, now that I’m really thinking about it, I actually did have showering/bathing buddies in Japan… it was silly at first, but it became rather fun for me.

‘Hey, what do you want to go do this weekend when we get together?’ a friend asks… ‘Onsen!’ was my delighted reply.

And it wasn’t so that we could go be naked together – that was always a way-after thought – but because I love having out in all the lovely baths in onsen… it’s one of my favorite pieces of Japanese culture, onsen.

I just became very comfortable with the whole showering and being naked with others – including friends – situation.

(Fun fact: I met my ukulele teacher in a bath at an onsen while on a snowboarding trip in Japan… we started lessons together a few months afterward.)

And so, I want to bring that back into my life, I guess.

Why would I love to have someone in my life?

Right now, because I want a shower buddy… 😛 (I am totally cracking up right now, but I really do mean it!)

It definitely teaches cooperation (and agility), it inspires a sense of childlike silliness, and it is just a little bit crazy…, all of which I think are wonderful things to have in our lives. 🙂

Also, in terms of exploring bodies physically, can we not learn to touch another’s body – say someone’s ripped abs or arms or legs, or beautifully shaped back, or even someone’s buttocks (Can you tell this one has happened to me??? Several times, actually…) – either clothed or not, with fascination and appreciation, and not have to make it an erotic affair?

Think of how a blind person might explore another’s face… it is not for erotic reasons but for getting to know the person.

Sure, a sighted person can see the other’s body, but how much do we really see?

I would love to explore my partner’s body, every bit of it, in a non-erotic sense… just as we get to know and to spend time with someone’s personality, I think it is important that we get to know someone’s bossy and spend time with it in its natural state (i.e. not aroused).

That isn’t to say that arousal need be denied always and forever – just that it has its own time and place, and isn’t always what’s called for (or best) at certain times.

So often, I hear people talk about wanting the lights to be dimmed or out when they are going to be naked in any way, even and especially around their partners, because they are ashamed or embarrassed about some or many parts of their bodies…

Would it not be better for everyone, if partners took the time to visit and explore and get to know one another’s bodies fully, in the light of day, so that they can be that much closer, more intimate and loving and accepting and appreciative of one another, more wholly so, after dark (and at all times)?

My opinion, of course, but I think it would be totally fabulous for both the individual relationships and for society at large.

……….

Okay, moving onward…

Second thing: Clothes.

One of my favorite things to do when showering is to enter the shower with clothes still on me.

It’s not something I do all the time – not by any means… it’s just something that I love, whenever I have the opportunity to do it.

When I was little/younger, I always had to do it because I had somehow gotten myself and my clothes absurdly dirty, such that the clothes could Not be put in the hamper in their present state – they needed to be rinsed off first.

Occasionally, it would be and still sometimes is because I have gotten myself caught in the cold, cold rain, and just want to get myself warm as quickly as possible… peeling the wet, gluey clothes off myself before entering the shower not only would have taken forever, but it would have frozen me even more, leaving my skin so exposed(!).

Most commonly, it was because I was in my swimsuit, and I needed to wash out the chlorine immediately, so as not to ruin they suit…, so I just got int he shower with the suit on, and then peeled it off and washed it quickly before washing myself.

These days, though, it is mostly just because I need to hand wash something that I am wearing (not necessarily a swimsuit)… a bra or underwear, sometimes socks or shorts, very occasionally a shirt or leggings or pants… and it’s sometimes because the items must be hand-washed, but most often because it is loads easier to do a quick hand wash in the shower than to do a whole load of laundry (that I may or may not have) just for the one item… also, if I need the one item soon or often, and I had only worn it just enough to be not fresh anymore, it really doesn’t need to go through such intense washing as the machine would do… a quick rinse and scrub is sufficient.

In fact, in winter, I have two of this particular shirt that I wear constantly, and so I always hand wash them in the shower.

Year-round, I wash almost all my sports bras in the shower… it started because I was required to hand wash my running bras, but continued because I have more work-out shirts than I do bras, and, as I have admitted before, I am not great with getting laundry done… I practically avoid it until I’ve been out of options for at least a few days*.

(I am getting loads better at it, actually, though I still have my moments of avoidance from time to time…)**

Anyway, I sometimes will hand wash something in the shower just because I want to experience the amazing feeling that is entering a warm shower, dressed.

If you haven’t ever tried it, naturally, I highly recommend it. 😉

Well, those are the two shower things that have been on my mind tonight…(!)

Happy bedtime, folks! 🙂

*In high school, we began “Swimsuit Day”, my best friend and I, because she loved wearing her swimsuit top better than a bra, and because I inevitably ran out of clean underwear, and didn’t necessarily notice until post-shower in the morning before school…, so I would grab a bikini bottom instead… and it became a thing that we did together for a day or two every time I needed to do laundry (obviously, I improved my awareness a bit, and so was able to give at least a day’s warning before “Swimsuit Day” was to take place… also, nobody ever really knew why we did it or how we determined when it would be, but plenty of people knew that it was “Swimsuit Day”, whenever it was… and some girlfriends actually started joining in, wearing swimsuits under their uniforms along with the two of us on “Swimsuit Day”…

**Did you lol at that unintended pun???… because I certainly did. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

We hiked!

Yay!

We hiked today, my mom and I (and a small group of dance people I don’t know very well, and my mom didn’t know at all).

It was faster than my mom and I wanted to be hiking, leaving us almost no time to look at anything other than the be-knotted ground at our feet (to keep from falling), so we didn’t exactly like that part.

But it was still a nice activity, and the few times that we did purposefully stop to look around were great.

We found the cave where Ayla must have stayed when she visited the continent…

(And a closer view… I didn’t want to get too close and bother the spirits guarding it…)

… and Rafiki’s tree(!)…

… and lots of other great bits of water and wild-life.

Totally great, right?

Right.

And then, to finish out the day, we all converged from our various activities – not everyone is up for hiking, as we all know, so there were other outdoor activities for the afternoon – to watch the sun set from a balcony at a fancy brewery that overlooks a lake.

It was beautiful.

It all was great, and it was especially lovely that this was part of a dance event – doing something outside of the dance hall / hotel / ballroom for once, and enjoying the fabulous weather together, and just being people who share a passion yet are not overtaken by it (that is, we can go do something else from time to time, and enjoy the something else together, too).

So, yeah… good day today… good weekend overall…

Despite that panicked anger that sprung up on me when I thought the beginner dancers were supposed to be considered to be of my level. 😛

(I admit that I grew very judgy and angry in those moments of misinformation…)

But, yeah, it was a good weekend, and the first time my mom tied in to a dance event’s events with me – and that was really cool. 🙂

P.S. Ayla is from the Earth’s Children books, and Rafiki is from “The Lion King”.

Post-a-day 2020

Ugh

I am going on what is intended to be a fun, freeing trip tomorrow.

And I am extremely stressed.

Not like pull your hair out stressed, but more like remember to breathe panicked stress…

I kind of hate packing for things that sound tiny but are actually more of a big packing situation.

If I were just going for the one thing, my packing would be simple and light.

But there is also this hiking at the end… which requires and entirely different set of everything…, and, therefore, requires a lot more space in the whole packing realm.

I had wanted to bring this small duffle.

The next size up is a carry-on hard-shell suitcase…

But, perhaps I need to use it anyway, and just have a light suitcase, instead of having to carry multiple small bags for all the hiking and whatnot stuff…

Ugh…

Anyway… bedtime for sure, now.

4:10 alarm for the gym before work, then work, and then trip with Mom.

Fingers crossed for restful sleep tonight (entirely unlike last night, please).

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day!! ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Wannabe who?

Growing up, I believe, we all have people we cross, both in real life and in fictional ways (e.g. book characters and movies characters), who we want to be (or else more like who we want to be).

We declare, at least to ourselves, “I want to be like that(!),” and then we take on new ways with determination.

We do our best in the moment to stick with these new ways of being or living, in order to be more like the desired individual – sometimes we stick with our new ways, and sometimes we drift back into whatever we were doing beforehand, and forget all about our determined declaration to be different than we had been.

I have found, though, that, in many cases, I have forgotten that I wanted to be like a particular individual, but still stuck with the new ways of being.

It is only years and years later that I rediscover my desire.

Sometimes I merely remember that I wanted to be like a certain someone.

Other times, I rediscover that want, thereby uncovering why I am doing a certain something.

The first I realized was Sailor Moon.

I am not sure I ever really watched the show, but I remember for sure seeing at least pieces of episodes, specifically the scenes where she transforms from her school uniform self into her battle-ready self.

I have always wanted a gold tattoo somewhere on me, because of the cats, but I have not pursued that one.

What I did pursue, however, was her hair.

In that scene where she transforms her outfit, her pigtails spiral around her body as her body turns, they are so long and blonde and perfect… and I wanted to have hair just like that, just like hers.

So, until junior year of high school, I had the longest hair I possibly could have.

I hated going to the hair dresser, because my sisters always lied to me, saying only an inch or two would come off – it was always a minimum of 4-6 inches, and not merely due to split ends… they just didn’t like the idea of my having such long hair.

And so, I left almost every appointment of my childhood haircuts balling.

Junior year of high school, I had been teased and taunted enough that, combined with my desire to try something different, I was ready to let the hair go.

I had a fun and silly summer with kids my age who joked about my hair in just the right way that I was delighted to allow them to go ahead and cut it for me (It was a whole huge fun and utterly silly ordeal, actually, and in an iconic spot in northern Spain.).

It was not until another few years later that, upon mentioning Sailor Moon to someone and talking about the show, that I suddenly remembered my childhood desire…, and that I suddenly understood why I always wanted my hair to be long.

People always were asking me, but I never had an answer that convinced myself… it was just some lame because I prefer long hair kind of answer… and now I knew.

And I never got those pigtails that swirled around me (because they’re actually probably impossible with natural hair)…, but I did have a lot of fun with my hair that summer, swinging it around like a helicopter to hit people nearby and all that jazz… it was great.

And it was all because I wanted swirling blonde pigtails like Sailor Moon had.

Fast forward into my adult life now.

In a conversation last night, my cousins says to me, “You’re essentially living the Dharma & Greg life right now.”

In so many ways, I am.

And it was super exciting that she said that to me, because I had always wanted to be like Dharma.

But I had never expected that it actually would happen.

However, here I am, living my own honest version of Dharma, and without even consciously doing it – it all kind of just fell into place in its own way in my life.

I am a yoga teacher; I live in an Ashram above a yoga studio; I have many odd and awesome jobs that come and go; I take spontaneous trips; I’ve done a boatload of what the average person would call absurd things; I’ve lived around the world with somewhat absurd circumstances; I speak honestly and openly, and it blows people’s minds regularly; I do the craziest of things; I surprise people with fabulous surprises; and I genuinely care about everyone in my life, and I make efforts for them to experience that love, no matter how loose the connection is between us; and there are a few others I’ll not mention just now… ;P

Nonetheless, I am very much like Dharma now, in my own way, and I hadn’t even remembered my desire to be like Dharma until just recently.

A third was Janie from the The Face on the Milk Carton young adult book series.

So many things she did, big and small – outfits, mannerisms, topics contemplated – have been around my life for years…, and I believe they were directly inspired by her in my elementary school self.

There’s actually a reminder on my phone right now to go get a certain outfit like what she had in one particular scene in the book – I loved it so much as a child, and, upon rereading it (and thereby rediscovering all of these things), I found I still loved it and wanted to make it happen, now that I really could(!).

I never would have remembered how badly I wanted to be like Janie, if I hadn’t reread those books recently.

The same would have been the case with Dharma, if I hadn’t started rewatching the show as an adult living in Japan a few years ago.

The same is so with Sailor Moon (and watching it recently).

And the same would have been true with a fourth person, if not for some meditations this afternoon on this particular person and my childhood.

This fourth individual is my cousin S—–.

As a child, I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, and I wanted to be as much like she was as possible.

I loved having hand-me-downs from her, but I rarely got them, because she was the top of the cousin chain, and I was the bottom – they had a long way to go to make it all the way down to me.

When she returned from having studied in Spain, she spoke easily with my stepfather in Spanish, and I envied her for it.

I wanted to do that, to be that way, studying abroad and speaking a new language comfortably and communicably, like it was no big deal, full of excitement.

Plus, just like all the others, she was beautiful.

And I wanted to be beautiful like that, too.

Here I am, years and years later, and I see how many things have spurred me on via my desires to be more like she was or is.

I not only studied abroad, but I did it many times; I speak more than just a few languages, and all of them rather comfortably; I have classy, chic outfits that I know something inside me calls “S——- outfits”; and my body is finally showing up to me like I have always wanted it to be…. which is surprisingly (or not surprisingly) similar to the body of the woman who stood before me tonight for the first time in a long time…, my cousin.

If we hadn’t been coming to see her tonight, I’m not sure I would have thought back to childhood with her in mind at all, and I doubt I would have remembered consciously that I had always been inspired by her and that I had wanted to be more like she was…

No, I haven’t become an awesome lawyer like she did, but that hasn’t changed the fact that something inside me keeps considering law school… I wouldn’t put it past being inspired entirely by my childhood love of her…

Anyway…, this has been fun, reminiscing on my childhood dreams for myself, but I’m not sure I did a very good job sharing about it all, so I’ll just leave it and get to sleep.

Goodnight, World… hasta mañana. ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Mister, Mister

I didn’t know him personally.

I didn’t really follow his career.

I’m not sure I ever even saw him in person.

Yet he was close to my heart, dear to me.

And my heart aches with surprising pains.

He was a constant in my life.

And constancy is wonderful in a world of ups and downs.

Kind of like the Eiffel Tower, or Canada – whether I visit them or not, I can always know that they are there, being the lovely things that they are, and people will share with me about them from time to time, their names popping round regularly, as though just to say, “Hi.”

That’s he he has been in my life.

As my dad pointed out, he was an up and coming name when I was first beginning to know and understand the existence of professional sports and the NBA…, so he really has been a constant for almost my entire life.

No, he wasn’t quite to the level of constancy as Hakeem Olajuwon or Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal, but he arrived to the scene only shortly after I had learned to love them, and so he holds a similar place in my life.

Like I said, he has been a constant for me.

He simultaneously seems so old, because he had already retired from playing a few years ago (2016?), yet so young, because he is only 41 years old (I believe he was drafted at only 18 years old).

His story has been magical, and his playing was beautiful.

And, just saying, his smile has always been spectacular.

God, thank you for the glorious gift that has been Kobe Bryant to our world.

Thank you for all you’ve done, Mr. Kobe Bryant.

❤

Post-a-day 2020

Living in the now?

People keep asking me how my trip was… and I keep having to pause to think about it, realizing that I’m not sure what to say, and then I end up just kind of shrugging saying generally that it was good… and not entirely convincingly.

Thinking about it now, I find it to be a lot like Mondays.

People ask me how my weekend was, and I have no idea… That was last week… I’ve already reset for the new week, and last week is all the way I’m the past now.

Being back in Houston again, living in my own house again…, I can help but feel I am right back to where I left off from here.

Second week of December, Christmas is coming, then New Year’s… more cold weather for a while…

Not the third week of January, Christmas over and Nee Year’s over and the weather likely to be ok the warmer side more and more already…

I felt the cool air this evening – love 20s and low 70s – blowing a perfect temperature over my leather jacket while riding, and I realized I expected it to grow colder over the next several days…, and also that it would do no such thing.

This is Houston – it gets warmer from here.

And so, as I look back on my past month, I feel almost that it never happened… not recently, anyway.

It feels miles away (which it actually is) and so long ago…

Just like my weekends feel on Monday mornings.

Looking at photos and telling my cousin this afternoon about part of our trip, I know that t was an absolutely spectacular trip.

But it just doesn’t feel so much like it, and I think that is mostly due to the fact that I have moved onward and am focused on what I have to do here and now, not on what happened last week or the two weeks before that, or even further back than that…

Yeah…

P.S. I keep writing 2019, though…, so maybe I’m not too much in the now, but in a fairyland dreamscape instead… haha 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Maybe it’s just for me

I don’t know what it is, but there is something about riding my bike on the highway through the cold, winter evening weather that makes me want to arrive home to my husband, have a little romp fest with him, and then snuggle up to a movie and hot cocoa by the fire together.

And, I mean, it isn’t exactly a sexual thing – riding my bike through the cold isn’t an erotic experience or anything.

It is kind of like how a cold winter day just kind of makes you want to snuggle close to a warm mug of hot chocolate or apple cider… only, when riding my bike on these days, I just want to have the little romp fest first, and then snuggle up under blankets with the warm mug.

Just as the hot chocolate just sounds like the perfect next step to the day, so does this little grouping of events sound for me.

Granted, this is Houston, Texas, so we won’t often have fires going anyway, and, besides that, I don’t exactly have a husband at the moment (or anything like one), so my scenario isn’t exactly plausible…, however, the cold weather and wind just somehow make it seem like the perfect way to continue on in the day.

Perhaps, somewhere down the road, that will be the way I end each chilly day of winter.

For now, though, I just smile at the slight irony of the situation and utter oddness about its existence in the first place, and then I feel the chill start to sink into my skin under my ski suit, and suddenly feel slightly sick, my stomach ebbing toward forcing out whatever might be at that moment within its uncomfortable, tightening confines…

Anyway, so that was my afternoon, eh?

How was yours? 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Jet-setting oven

Well, here we go…

It has been an interesting day so far, and continues to be so now…

I currently am very annoyed with Air Canada, but I am hoping that they will remedy the nasty problem when they open the counter (as soon as this ANA flight finishes at the same gate, and someone shows up for my flight).

Also, what to do?

Buy the filthy expensive whisky for my dad, a whisky that you kind of can’t get anywhere else anyway?

I think so.

But I have to wait for them to open the counter to remedy the situation with my flight first…, then walk all the way back to the duty free place that had it (because the one here doesn’t have it).

Huff……

God, help me heal through this next bit of traveling (because I also happen to have a fever right now, naturally).

😛

P.S. They did not remedy the situation, and it was not a very comfortable flight arrangement… however, my seat companion and I commiserated and laughed about it a bit, and had some great conversation besides, so it ended up being tolerable (fortunately!).

Post-a-day 2020

Worlds apart

It really is a different world here, in Japan.

I already knew vaguely about bathing in the home, and I had experienced the onsen system of public bathing, but I had never been in someone’s home for it all.

This week, I had one friend talk me through how to shower (per my request) when I stayed with her at her apartment, I had an old coworker explain to me how bathing worked (also per my request) when I was staying at her house with her and her two girls, and then I again had an opportunity to bathe at the house of my old host family.

(Yes, “host family” suggests that I lived with them, but it was just a one-weekend homestay, and they took me to an onsen, so I never used their bathroom.)

I now know how it all works, however, I wasn’t too interested in the bath part, for various reasons, and so I simply did the showering portion of the bathing, and continued on my way to bed.

And, what’s cool to me about that is how I went ahead and told my host family that I usually just shower.

They were shocked, because, well, it’s winter and is therefore cold here.

However, I explained that it is quick, and I prefer showering, and they were okay with it.

My friend who had explained the showering to me the other day actually has a feature in her bathroom that blows warm air when you turn it on, so you can shower and not get cold (because you really don’t leave the water running for showers*, so it can get really cold soaping up after the hot water isn’t pouring all over your body anymore), which I found to be really cool, but simultaneously really silly.

So Japanese, really.

Also, I have noticed that everyone leaves food out, during the day or overnight…

My guess is that it is because it is wintertime, and so, here anyway, it is very dry and there aren’t really any bugs at all.

I think they would be surprised with Houston’s winters… and possibly would wonder when winter was going to start, and wonder what happened to the winter months when it is suddenly February and the weather still feels like early October… 😛

… anyway…

My old coworker said to me that she can tell I am very 元気 genki (healthy and well and filled with energy) now, and that she is glad for it, that it makes her very happy.

I told her that I believe Texas (Houston) agrees with me very well… thus my being very well.

And it is true: living in Houston agrees with me.

Living in Japan did not.

It broke me down.

Fortunately, I have distinction enough to acknowledge when there is breakdown on my life, and so worked through the total breakdown of myself and my life, resulting in the greatest breakthrough of my life… something for which I likely will be ever grateful.

I am who I am today in huge part due to my time – my horrible, miserable, pain-filled and stress-filled time – in Japan.

And who I am today is someone I love being.

Frankly, she is amazing.

For one thing, everyone lives touching her muscles. ;P

For another, she emits genkiness, the spirit of life, delight at being alive.

And those are both ways I have wanted to be for many, many years…

She is also grateful and graceful.

Double plus there.

I am proud to be the excited, learning being that I am today, and I am grateful for the opportunity to live this life, as well as the opportunity to become the ever-better version of myself that each moment of the future holds for me.

I am here to share my gifts with the world, those gifts that God has given me, and I am finally taking care of myself so that I can do that truly, wholly, and not just in part.

No, I am not sharing them perfectly every moment of every day and night – I don’t believe that I ever will do that.

However, I am sharing them perfectly for who I am and where I am right now, and that, in and of itself, is perfect.

So, tangent coming to a close, thank you, Japan, for being this absurdly different world that only agrees with me on short-term visits, and that pushes almost all my buttons… like every day. 😉

I am grateful for all that you have so far shared with me, and I look forward to our future interactions and exchanges together.

I hope I have offered and will offer in kind. 🙂

For now, Oyasumi, goodnight.

*Oftentimes, at onsen, I have seen (and therefore now do myself sometimes) women sitting on the shower stools, using one foot to keep the water button pushed in while washing, so the water stays on for more than ten seconds at a time – so it runs continuously – and they don’t ever have to feel cold while sitting there, showering.

P.S. I only just realized that I need to be putting 2020 on here now… oops…

Post-a-day 2020