Tag: life

Trading Good for Great

One of the hardest things for me in life is giving up something good.  And I don’t mean just giving it up, in any sense.  I think I really mean giving up something good, when the only purpose is to make space for something better.  ‘What I already have is wonderful.  Why do I want to give it up, and risk having nothing in the end?’  For whatever reason, I believe that a sort of fairy tale is in progress in my life.  Anything is possible, and I am determined to have an amazing life.  Perhaps I have a separate sense for this kind of feeling, and perhaps I’m just filled with a sort of wishful thinking, likely inspired by film and novels.  (Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books, after all.)  I don’t know.  I do know, however, that every time I have let go of something that has been “good” or less, something better has just shown up for me.  The newer, better something is almost effortless in having it become part of my life.  The hard part is letting go of the former, not-as-good something.

For clarity, imagine, well I don’t know right now.  I can’t seem to think of anything specific from my life right now.  (I am rather exhausted from having stayed up late for a friend who needed a place to stay last night, and then ending up chatting together, catching up, until way into the morning hours of nighttime.  It was great finally seeing this particular friend again, but it has left me wiped tonight!)  Well, let’s talk generally, then, on a common matter.  Just watched Sleepless in Seattle again.  If she had stayed with her wonderful Walter, life would have been nice; she could have gotten on just finely with her Walter for the rest of her days.  But, she had a sense of there being something more, something even better than her Walter out there for her.  By letting go of her Walter, she created the space in her life for Sam.  And, frankly, it seems Annie and Sam were MFEO (made for each other), just as the young children had somewhat declared.  So, Annie let go of something good, and something spectacular arrived in the space created by Walter’s departure from Annie.

Does that make better sense?  I think it’s still iffy on my description tonight, but we’ll let it stand for now, so I can go to sleep.  😛

Anyway, I’m terrified to let go of what I know is not the best for me, but that is currently “good” and “decent” for me in my life.  Absolutely terrified.  And I know that I must first let go of it, in order to create the space for something amazing to come along.  Deep breath, Hannah.  Deep breath.  🙂

 

Post-a-day 2017

Inner Physics

Physics is one of the most intriguing areas of the sciences to me.  One aspect of it that I really love is what I call “inner physics”.  Inner physics to me is the physics that happens internally, often without our notice, but still produces results outside of ourselves.

Hand-Eye coordination is part of what I call inner physics.  At first, we have to work hard when catching and throwing a ball or frisbee – we think and calculate consciously.  After a while, though, it becomes a natural, almost thoughtless process.  It becomes easy and innerly calculated, without the intentional help of our consciousness.  If someone tossed me a ball right now, and I caught it, I could not explain the mental process of calculation for how I had caught the ball.  “I just caught it,” would be me likely reply.  It was like second nature to me.

That in mind, perhaps you can begin to see all the other things I see as inner physics – aka physics calculations we do without being aware of having done them, or having the slightest idea of how to write out the mathematics used for them.  Things like managing to walk a straight line or keep from falling over; carrying something without spilling it; giving high fives, scratching a spot in our own head without blinking the hand into the head; hopping; jumping off of something; properly aligning q-tips to clean our ears; not poking ourselves in the face with our toothbrushes; not spilling water when we bring the glass to our mouths for a drink… those sorts of things.  I find them all fascinating.  Most of them involved such complex physics, that I don’t even know how to write out the equations for the various situations.  And yet our brains are accomplishing these tasks by doing these mathematical equations almost automatically.

The one piece of inner physics that never ceases to amaze me, though, is how on earth we manage to sit down on a toilet seat, especially at night.  We can not see it, we are not touching it, and yet we somehow land gracefully in just the right spot as we sort of fall backward and downward.  Some people struggle to catch a ball that is visible in front of them, yet most everyone can turn ’round and squat perfectly down to a toilet seat.  We are mathematical magicians with that stunt, I swear.

I love inner physics.  I also enjoy when we have a little blip in our inner physics – like hitting our face with the straw or spoon, instead of it going seamlessly between the lips.  I always enjoy that one.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017 

a day’s checklist?

You know the days when, at home in the evening, you feel like you have nothing left to do?  Tonight feels like that to me.  I’m sitting on the floor in my living room, wondering what else to do.  Certainly, I have at least ten legitimate things I could do right now, – work on my rainstick or flute or swords, paint the painting I’ve had in mind for the past few days, clean something, wash some clothes, dye some more eggs, listen to my audiobook, read my current daytime book, etc. – however, I don’t feel a need to do any of them.  My experience is similar to that of cleaning days as a child.  We would get a list of things to clean and/or organize around the house, and cross off each one as we completed it, leaving us satisfying exhausted at the end of all the cleaning – our list was all marked off, and we had truly accomplished a good handful of beneficial tasks.  We could settle down on the sofa with something to eat and drink, and pass out at will.  Today, for whatever reason, has felt like one of those days.  And I didn’t even clean anything.

But I still have that sense of accomplishment and completion, combined with a happy exhaustion.  I keep glancing around, checking if there’s something wanting me to do it.  And I keep coming up with nothing – I did everything for today, is the thought I keep having and distrusting.  But I think who I was today is what allowed me to have such a sense of success and task-completion for the day.  I wore the clothes, and did the activities, I talked with people, I tried things, I wandered, and, above all, I feared, yet still did it all.  I experienced fear so much today, it was ridiculous, but the best part about it is that I accepted the fear almost every time, and just went onward anyway – I went for what mattered to me, even in the face of fear.  And so, naturally, I am incredibly exhausted, but also incredibly satisfied and content.  I have done my duty for today, and now I can rest.  When I wake, it will be a new day.  Happy Easter, Folks.

Peace

Hannah

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

A Normal Life

People regularly tell me how amazing they think my life is.  Almost every time, I am somewhat incredibly surprised at the statement – to me, my life is normal.  There’s always someone who has been to more places, done more things, been to better places, and done better and greater things than I have.  If anything, I feel as though I am coming up short to the declarations people make about the awesomeness and greatness of my life, my experiences, and my accomplishments.

However, something that always seems to happen when I receive these sorts of comments/compliments, is that I find a need to live up to them.  That is, I feel I need to do more, better, good, to do more exciting things, and to make my life more worth envying.  Recently, as I have noticed this fact, I’ve begun to wonder if it is not a wonderful thing that people make such compliments and comments about my life.  For, in their doing so, my life becomes more amazing.  I certainly want to do all of these things that I end up doing, however something like fear combined with laziness tends to hold me back from seeking them out, until, of course, I have the encouragement of what feels like duty to make these people’s feelings justified.

Though, even still, my life remains the same in terms of how it feels – normal.  Sure, I have done this one really cool thing recently, but the overall is still very average, plain, and normal.  It even makes me wonder if I can ever measure up to what I view as an amazing life worth envying.  No matter what I accomplish, where I go, or what I learn, will things always seem normal to me, and not worth truly being envied by others?  Will my life never really seem awesome and amazing to me?

I don’t know, of course…  It’s just a question I’m throwing out there, thinking on for myself and my life, wondering where it might lead me next.
Post-a-day 2017

Dance Class #1

Dancing heals the soul.  I swear, it does.  Music brings up the emotions, the experiences of our lives.  And the dancing allows us to express whatever those emotions and experiences bring forth inside us.  When we are joyful, we dance it with ease and are free.  When we are sad, we might resist the dancing altogether – but that is why the dancing heals.  

In order to dance, and to dance properly (read “with the heart”), we have to allow that sadness to be free.  So long as we resist the sadness, we cannot truly dance – our heart is not in it.  As soon as we let go of being in control of the emotions, that sadness, it is as though literal bindings are removed, letting our legs and arms swing about freely to the beat.  Even if we feel that we cannot let go of the sadness, by throwing the heart into the dance, that sadness is expressed and freed.  

I could certainly put this into better words, but I really don’t feel like it right now.  So, I’ll just leave it at this:

If you can dance, and properly, with all your heart, you can express and free any state of emotion in which you currently find yourself.  And I got to do that tonight – it was really hard at first, resisting the dancing because of my emotional state, but then I reached that point of freedom from my fear-laced bindings, and I danced.  And it was wonderful.  : )
Post-a-day 2017

Life Goals…?

If you know me personally, don’t freak out, okay?

Now, I have this strange feeling that I have a somewhat unreasonable but real desire powering me into this next year of my life.  It’s not as though I am actively thinking, “This is why I am doing this,” or whatever.  It’s more like a secret desire and hope that is hanging out in the background of my mind and life, ever so slightly prodding me to be successful in all of my endeavors.

I am planning out my move back to the US this late summer, and I am emphasizing doing what I love to do, things that bring me true joy and fulfillment, and which easily bring forth the full efforts of my heart.  My time here in Japan has shown me that I do, in fact, love teaching, but that there is much more that I want to have be part of my daily and weekly life.  (And that I want to eat loads of fruit all the time.)  I also still hold that I want to make a comfortable amount of money, to where I can still always buy lunch for my friends, get an extra gelato at midnight, and go on random trips every month-ish.  So, I have this really neat and flexible plan for moving back to the States and getting myself in line with all of those things.

The biggest thing that has come up for me in all of this “life searching”, so to call it, though, is my love of children, and finally acknowledging that I want a child of my own, in my own home.  With this, of course, also came the acceptance of the idea that I want to adopt a child, and not birth one myself. (Though I’ve never liked the idea of giving birth, it’s certainly not the reason for wanting to adopt, – there’s a whole background to the adoption idea for me – but skipping the pains of birth is a great perquisite to adoption.)

And so, with all of that in mind, I find myself somehow secretly excited about finding a comfortable routine and financial balance in my next year.  Even though I know it might not even happen, the idea of being at a place where I could consider adopting, is… , well…, empowering.  It excites me about my next set of endeavors, and in a way I have never been excited about things.  This one, in a way, is somewhat selfless.  Yes, I want the child to be in my life and all.  But the whole goal is to give love and everything wonderful to another.  So, in a way, it’s like everything I do is for that someone else now.  Even if that someone else never ends up coming along for me, it’s an aim, a possibility, that empowers me to be and do the best I can.

I’m not so sure that I did a very good job of expressing all of this, and I know I’ve left loads of it out of the above text, but I just wanted to share it, at least in some degree, with the world.  I want a kid.  And I want to do what I can to create my beautiful dream life now, so that that kid can join me, and (semi-) soon.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017

Soundtrack to life

Tonight, I dedicate my writing to the songs that make a soundtrack to life.  Riding home on the train this evening, exhausted, watching the lights blip on and off in the darkness as the world glided cooly by, my forehead and hand pressed against the glass of the door to block out the light inside the train, I noticed how the song in my ears was a perfect fit to the soundtrack for that scene of my life.

I truly don’t know what song it was, – something new from NoiseTrade – but I know that it was perfect.  If someone were filming my life at that moment, – what I was watching anyway, and how I was feeling – the song would have been what was playing with the clip.  That hopeful, I can make it, even though life is hard and lonesome at times feeling was so clear, I wanted to know what happened next in the movie.  Alas, it’ll be weeks before the next five minutes of that film make themselves clear (movies are such cheaters on time), but I’ll hang in there – I’m here for the long haul, anyway.  😛

It wasn’t as good as the time I was saying goodbye to the acrobats in Dallas (another time, and I’ll tell all, song included), at which point my life really was like a scene from a movie, soundtrack and all.  But it was still a good one.  It reminded me a bit of the power of music, the things it can do to the mind – give us hope when we’re hopeless, lift us when we’re down, energize us when we’re exhausted, sober us when we’re going a bit nuts-o.  Music is like love, but more easily acknowledged and with benefits more often reaped.

So, tonight, I say a hearty thank-you to music and to those who create it.  Especially to the ones that work so beautifully as soundtracks for life.  Thank you.  Thank you, all.  🙂

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

a Turn in the Road instead

Something I have learned about Japan is that roads that appear to be turning into a dead-end almost never are at their ends.  That is, they are all false dead-ends.  If you keep going on the road, almost as if magic were at play, a continuation of the road appears just past that house or those bushes – things only appear to be ending, when the road merely has turned (and quite sneakily in my opinion).

Some days, I wonder if this is a sort of big picture lesson for me to learn.  We always talk of life as a road or a path.  Perhaps these Japanese roads are a new take on the road of life, the path we are taking, which seems to be coming to a dead-end…  and, perhaps not.  Nonetheless, I find myself wondering often about it, because it is such an odd thing to have discovered, I feel.  🙂

 

Post-a-day 2017

Music creates life

You know, music really can make life feel worth living.

These past few weeks have been really odd for me, and this week, especially, has been quite filled (to partial explosion) with stress, and an odd kind at that.  This afternoon, as I had still two hours to fill, after what had felt like a day’s worth of work and several hours of painful efforts to sleep, I put on my jacket and rushed out into the hallways to get myself moving around, and in hopes of finding something to help pass the time, preferably involving movement (thus my vague plan of aiming for the gymnasium).

The music students are currently preparing solos (with piano accompaniment), and so I came across one of my lovelies (the Bass player) rehearsing in the hallway/student entrance area (there’s a piano there) with her accompanist.  They welcomed me joyfully, and so I watched and hopped around (it was filthy cold) with semi-frozen delight for a bit.

They finished after not quite ten minutes, and so I wandered on my way toward the gym again.  As I was making the final turn, I was caught by a trumpet and a couple clarinets (which was fine by me).  One of them had told me that she wants to play with me, but our scheduled time for today had to be canceled, because she had to go home after rehearsal.  But she was here now, and practicing…, so she dragged me in and got me to play a bit (though not together, since we only had one trumpet).

Then, when I thought they were all leaving, they told me to come with them upstairs to what turned out to be a brief a capella singing rehearsal.  They were sopranos, so I got to stand with them and learn the soprano part to a very pretty Japanese song.  It was almost spooky how cool it sounded and felt to be in the group, making such beautiful music.

Afterward, we established that one girl is crazy, and I declared my similar mental state.  She and I, and others off and on, proceeded to dance around to the music of others rehearsing… we high fived as I was about to leave, as a sign of joint craziness and joy, and I said my goodbyes to the room, with lots of love in reply.  I truly felt myself at home with this goofy group of musicians.

As I rushed out the door, and put back on my shoes, a flautist was in the hallway, next to my shoes.  He excused himself, and I said, “Play!”  Instantly, and with a smile and an “Okay,” he played part of his solo piece for me.  It was beautiful.

And it was standing there in that freeing hallway, listening to this boy play flute, that the thought crossed my mind, unbitten, “Music really can make life worth living.”

As I have struggled with life lately, – and no, I don’t mean in the sense of giving up on life as a whole, but just on giving up on this part of life, living here and doing this job and all of that – what has gotten me through every time has been music.  Sometimes it has been live music from these kids at school, or from the guitar I got as an early Christmas present last week.  Sometimes it has been from Spotify or my music collection.  And sometimes even just a single song that a friend sent me from YouTube.

Whatever the case, the source of my survival, my strength, my belief that this life is worth continuing and working at, despite its near-overwhelming hardships, has been music.  I finally understand a bit what a friend of mine meant, when she said she felt like she had died, when she lost her hearing and, thereby, music.  When I don’t have the music, I just get used to the solemn melancholy, the deafening silence of a lifestyle I don’t love – I grow accustomed to not living, and I despise the existence (but that all just becomes the norm).  And when I do have the music, I am excited for today, for right now, and for what tomorrow might bring – I feel the life inside me and all around me, and I yearn to spread myself around and live to the fullest.

Music really does give life and make life worth living, even when it feels like you have nothing else for you.

I'm part of Post A Day 2016

Rainbows of life

Some days, I think we just have to experience a rainbow of emotions. Perhaps it is to remind us that, despite our struggles and troubles, everything is alright, because we are still here – feeling, breathing, thinking, living -, alive and well, and able to get through it all, whatever it happens to be.  We always think of the beauty of rainbows as something that we experience from a distance. However, we cannot do this with our personal rainbows of life, because we are right in the middle of the rainbow, exuding our colors outward so far as we can reach, enlightening, empowering, and bringing bliss to all those within range.

Something like that, anyway… I really like the image of being in the middle of our own rainbows, thus being unable to see it in all its glory.  🙂
I'm part of Post A Day 2016