Tag: family

Swimstress

(Pronounced much like seamstress, but just a different first set of letters.)

I attended a swim meet today for little kids.

On the way over, I was discussing on the phone with my aunt my own swim team days, and how stressful they always were for me – a fact which I had rather forgotten entirely until the discussion today.

I wasn’t concerned in any way, of course, but instead excited to be attending the meet and finally not being one swimming in it.

While watching the little kids swim, however, I found myself rubbing genuine tears from the sides of my eyes (at first, I’d thought it was just sweat, or something in my eye, but quickly discovered that they were actual tears), and not from joy or excitement.

I wished my little family members fun and luck – I hoped their swim each time went well and that they enjoyed doing it.

The parents all around me had other thoughts and ideas for their children… speed, winning, beating the other kids, going as hard and fast as they could… this is what they told the kids constantly before each heat began…

‘Go as fast as you can, okay?…, as fast as you can!’

One parent, upon hearing a coach say to a child to make sure she has fun, casually added to her just-completed long declarations of necessary speed, with a pathetic fervor, ‘Disfruta.’ (Spanish for ‘Have fun,’ or ‘Enjoy.’)

She didn’t seem too convinced that having fun was a priority, though. :/

The whole thing ended up carrying a whole sense of stress for me, and had me wondering how many children were going to struggle because of this pressure from these parents…. they aren’t even over six years old yet, and they are crying their eyes out after swimming a fabulous 25 metres, just because they didn’t win…

Now, not all the kids were like this, of course…, but there were enough to make me rather uneasy.

If it had just been the parents cheering on the kids to do their best, that would have been fabulous.

But it wasn’t that, was it?

Very few adults seemed to be cheering that way at all…., and it made me want to ask them to consider what their priorities are regarding their children and the happiness of their children.

Perhaps I’m not doing a very good job at portraying the parental cheering and commentary… it just seemed like no one encouraged the kids to do their best, even – all that mattered was going fast, according to all the parents were saying.

And odd topic for a regular Monday night swim meet, I dare say(!).

Anyway, I was able to see why on Earth I was so stressed out at swim meets as a child – there is an immense amount of rather intense pressure, most of which is literally being screamed at you as a swimmer… no wonder I totally disliked it and always felt like I was letting everyone down and failing.

Plus, compared to my older brothers, who swam first heat in their ages groups, and who often got top places in their heats, I really sucked, being in second or third (or even last heat, sometimes), and not even getting a top placement there… I had a real ball-fest whenever I received that all-too-common purple ribbon after my swim: DQ (disqualification)…

So, yeah… that was an interesting experience this evening…

Surprisingly enough, it caused a resurgence, even stronger this time, of my wanting to be a swim team coach… I don’t know why specifically, but I really want to do that somehow.

Also, if I’m ever looking to hire young people, I am so looking for kids who have been swim team coaches – boy do they handle a lot, and effectively, too… totally reliable as good hires, I say.

Anyway, I’m glad I got into swimming in college… I learned that I really love swimming laps – I can literally do it for hours and still enjoy it… I think it was just all the pressure I felt at swim meets that had me practically hate them and, by association, swimming laps itself… even though I totally admired the people who could swim lots and well.

I want to get back into that, actually… hmm…

Post-a-day 2019

Dressed for Work

Tonight, I attended with my mom a sake mini-course and tasting event.

As predicted, every Japanese man was in a dark suit with a white shirt… however, the slight touch of color was found in a tie or pocket square in the Americanized men.

Also as predicted, there was a fabulous array of Japanese foods, the presentation was brief but extremely informative, and the tasting was hilariously wonderful.

While there, I considered strongly at one point what everyone else was wearing.

Beforehand, I had asked my mom, a person who is usually quite particular about dressing to the appropriate level for things, if I needed to change into a different dress than what I had on… I showed her the dress, which was a much nicer and more business-y version of what I already was wearing, and she didn’t think the change was needed…. she pointed out that she was wearing something quite similar, albeit slightly nicer-looking (same color scheme, different pieces).

We had been at an art film showing earlier on, and I had worn my current outfit for that and felt totally comfortable in my choice, but I figured it was best to check with her regarding the Japanese event.

Sure enough, once there, she commented that we should have known everyone would be in business suits and the likes, since it was a Japanese event… I reminded her that that was precisely why I had asked about my outfit ahead of time, and she rather shrugged her shoulders unconcernedly at this with an Oh, well…, and we moved on to enjoy ourselves, anyway.

At this point, I thought about how everyone was probably just coming straight from work, anyway, and so they were all just in work clothes… and then I realized that I, too, was coming straight from work and that I, too, was just in work clothes…

I don’t have a corporate job in an office with a cubicle on a floor in a big building… or anything like it… I’m a writer and photographer… and, today, I was editing photos, and then sent them off to a client – much work accomplished for a single afternoon, actually… and this cotton dress and summer sandals are what I wore to do that… casual and cute, but not office business…

In “Hannah’s Life, Created”, a notebook I compiled a couple years back, while living in Japan, I have a brief description of what I want my work attire to be… tonight was a beautiful acknowledgement of my having achieved that desire, and, in that instant of noticing this, I was filled with a sense of calm confidence in regards to my life – I am doin a beautiful job of pursuing my goals and dreams and of becoming and being the person I want to be.

I’m not all the way there yet… I am there with some things, though, and I am well on my way to more and more at any moment(!!!)…. and I love it.

I really do love it.

Yes, it would have made sense to wear the nicer dress tonight… no, it didn’t ultimately matter for what tonight specifically was…, yes, it was amazing to notice what I did about being in my ‘work clothes’, and so was totally worth it this time to be a bit under-dressed…, and no, I never really quite fit in at Japanese events, anyway – Gaijin Smash to the max!**

So yeah… we had an awesome time at the event, learned loads about sake. – and yes, I am fully aware of how odd it is that I take such an interest in sake, when I drink just about no alcohol in the average month – and ate wonderful foods over wonderful conversations.

And I had a lovely discovery about my current status in life, and it tickles and overjoys me even now, hours later. 🙂

Yay, life!

And thank you, God, for entrusting me with this piece of the path – I love this part, and I trust you fully, as I throw myself fully into this lovely hard work!

Peace

Hannah

**Man, do I miss my store Mister Maxx in Toride, Ibaraki!… like a cross between Target, Petsmart, and a bakery!

Post-a-day 2019

Let’s Nike it

The music is playing on my head again… the music from our routine, I mean…

Is it because I want to do the routine?…, because I want to be that clean (in my dancing)?…, because I want to be the professional I know it would lead to being in the dance world?…, or because I want that body shaping I had at the time?…

In the past, it was all about the first several reasons, but I think it is, this time, about the final reason: the body.

I watch videos from then, and I am surprised at how slim my legs are, how flat my belly is… and that surprise really drives home how unfit I had become in the past couple years.

I get it, though – a lot of stress in a certain kind of way can do this to me, especially with how I was emotionally and psychologically until this calendar year.

Now, however, I want to be done with it all, and move forward as the person I want to be, physical body and all.

We’ve been doing this exercise for two months, now… I was worried to look at a scale, because it doesn’t feel like the fat has been rolling off or anything… and I didn’t want to imagine I had been as bad off as I would have had to have been, if it has been rolling off, and this is how I look right now… (hope you understood that)…

I have so much muscle showing up, it’s almost funny…, but then it’s also a bit sad that the only thing left to complete the visual picture is food – the food I have done a terrible job at managing these past several months with my in-and-out circumstances with my home (which continued with a sudden water issue that kicked me out again last night, after having had only five days back at home since the last necessary departure)… so, in a way, I’m not fit yet, because I don’t have a stable home…

How crazy an idea is that?… really makes me wonder about people who generally have no stable homes… hmm… it’s so dreadful, even knowing that I have somewhere I could stay (most of the time, anyway)…, I can only imagine not having that, and trying to be healthy… even good emotional health would be troublesome to come by at that point, I think… man…

Anyway… so I’m back at home again, and I’m clearing out things, cleaning up and tidying, slowly taking on the KonMari lifestyle for realz – I want this, and it definitely feels like the world has been asking me to do it lately… perhaps a crazy and spectacular move is in the mix in the near future, and this has all been necessary to prepare me for it… only those in the know know, and I do not seem to be one at the present time… if only future self could hand me some words of wisdom. 😛

Actually, perhaps this clearing out is due to inspirational words of wisdom from my future self… we shall see what comes, I guess, and that is all we can do about the future, really.

And so I will make way for what is to come, and I will be better prepared in doing so than if I had stayed unaltered … for life is change, and nothing is ever stagnantly the same, so let us change willingly and wholly with life, embracing it as we go… that’s my present intention, anyway. 🙂

Let’s do it.

Post-a-day 2019

A brief note to myself

Dear Hannah,

You’re right – you will be okay… you will make it through all of this, and be the better for it, and even more so than you currently can imagine.

You can do it.

And it’s okay to be scared a bit, too, and to cry a lot… totally part of the whole process of turning into the person you want to be. 😉

Peace and Love be unto, from, and within you

Hannah of the future

Post-a-day 2019

At the close of a rough day…

What are you doing right now?

Can I play ukulele to you?

I’m feeling a bit lonesome and useless, and that would be a quality purpose

I considered guitar, but the strings really need to be replaced :/

Those were the messages I sent.

And then she called me…, and I played ukulele and sang to her, and we talked a bit afterward about some things, and it was great.

My mission was accomplished, and I felt so much more at ease than beforehand… service given, art made, purpose felt, love shared.

Friends are wonderful, even when they are all the way across the country.

🙂

P.S. I spoke briefly with a friend in D.C. earlier, and then this one in Oregon tonight… I really do span the country with my closest friends… it’s almost as though one must live farther away in order to deepen our friendship more. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

10,000 Steps

Some days, you rent a red 2013 beetle and, after spending four hours straight tutoring, drive two hours out of town to visit your cousin, who is in from… somewhere, anyway…, and you find yourself walking the neighborhood in the middle of the night together (even though you have to leave before seven the next morning), because you only reached 5,000 steps (of your required daily 10,000) in all of your tutoring and driving, and you find yourself, as you listen to Norah Jones to compare it with the Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys similar songs your cousin was playing on the piano, chuckling silently and inwardly at the silliness of the whole situation (including the part where you technically have two other vehicles sitting back at home right now), also wondering how that morning wake-up is going to go…

Oh, no… that, again, is just my some days… in particular, my today… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

an Ouch of fitness

It all seems to hurt now… I’ve only taken a day off from the exercise, but all the muscles seem to hurt now.

My aunt adjusted one of my shoulders – deltoid was kind of up in the shoulder, thus some really odd feelings from time to time – today, and it feels loads better already.

However, it kind of just brought attention to how messy everything else is right now… no, they aren’t as bad as that shoulder was, but they all kind of suck right now, nonetheless.

I did an upper body chair yoga stretch class video just now, and I am acutely aware of what feels like a hundred plus tiny spots of tightness and soreness throughout my upper body… my neck feels absurdly tight on each side, all the muscles that connect along the sides of my spine seem to have knots in them, somewhere, and my left shoulder is just far too high (now that my right one is in its proper place)…

I feel like I need to be tossed like a rag doll into a trampoline, and then bounces around a while, so everything can be shaken up just enough to relax and, eventually, fall back into its proper place.

If only that were a viable option… as it is, it’s probably a good thing I have no trampoline access, because it wouldn’t work out as I’d like, anyway… 😛

Ugh!

God, please, heal my body tonight and tomorrow…. take full advantage of my two days off of exercise, and heal my body to a comfortable beauty, that I might better share your love in and with the world.

Amen

Post-a-day 2019

A doubly dry spell

The wells of the sky now seem to be dry.

And I,

Alone again in my room,

Singularly sigh.

“I feel you, skies… I feel you…

Today was not as expected,

And I can’t quite tell if I am preparing to burst into song – somewhere way in the near future – or am replenishing the water within, that I might, once again, let it all flow forth, releasing all of this ick inside that cannot abide…

Ugh…”

Post-a-day 2019

Mothers-in-law

Tonight, I attended a musical performance in an art gallery.

During the second part, after interacting briefly with a woman who helped me get water out of the near-empty water dispenser, the woman approached me:

W: As a mother of three boys, I have to ask you: Are you married?

H: [quiet laughter, because the concert has resumed in the next room of the gallery] I am not, no.

W: Good, because I like you… I have a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, so you can take your pick.

H: Didn’t you just say that one of them is married?

W: Well, yes, the redhead is married.

H: [quiet laughter]

W: … But that might not last… you never know… And then you could have him… I’d be a good mother-in-law… I’m great at presents… I’ve had to deal with multiple mothers-in-law, so I’ve learned… I can be a very good mother-in-law… and I wouldn’t live next door.

Another 45 minutes or so later, the concert had ended, I had had several more reasons shared with me as to why I ought to consider marrying one of this woman’s sons, and I left the gallery with her e-mail and phone number, not because she had me convinced with her son who looks just like the (absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion) guy in “Fantastic Beasts” (though I remember him from loving him in “Les Mis'”), or with the fact that his job is a promise of absurdly high amounts of money for the rest of our lives, but because of her job…

You see, I was thinking to myself just his morning that I was interested in learning more about this specific something in Houston… and here I was tonight, under hilarious pretenses, handed a woman who works in just that specific something.

I plan to e-mail her this week to set up a meeting about her work.

And, who knows?… perhaps I’ll end up going out with her boy after all. 😛

H: [totally cracks up, alone in her room, as she considers the scenario]

Post-a-day 2019

Opera…

… so dramatic…(!)

But I totally love it, and largely for its actually absurd level of drama – the characters in shows are just plain nuts… and, if you don’t think they are, just pay a bit closer attention to their words, and they’ll wind up nuts soon enough.

Seriously, though…. almost all the characters… in almost every show… 😛

It’s kind of great. 😀

Whenever my mom and I attend a Mozart opera, at some point in the performance – and it sometimes happens more than once, if the music makes it really too hard to resist the secret explosion – my mother leans over to me and whispers through slightly pursed lips, “Too many notes…”

She doesn’t mean it, of course – she is merely commenting on how clearly she can hear the amazing number of notes that happen in a matter of seconds in Mozart’s compositions.

And, of course, she does so by quoting Signore Salieri from the spectacular film “Amadeus”.

(If you haven’t seen it, watch it… if you have, feel invited to watch it again soon.) 😉

It always gives me a bit of crack up, while simultaneously bringing a sense of awe into the space: Mozart’s compositions truly are magical.

And the ‘too many notes’ thing really is magical, too, because, upon first listening, I never notice the hundreds of notes…, but, when I think of Salieri’s comment, I suddenly hear them all, flying about, going this way and that, like butterflies of all different colors, going in all directions, but somehow all painting a beautiful picture in front of you with their combined colors en masse… it’s like a Seurat with notes…

And I love it.

Post-a-day 2019