Tag: love

Swirlytop

I don’t have much to say right now, tonight. Except that I feel a lot of that old hurricane season waiting for the next 24-48 hours. It could be disaster, and it could be simply some winds and rain and no biggie whatsoever. It could not even do that much – the storm could turn elsewhere entirely, or dissipate immediately upon landfall. They all have happened in my lifetime, and more than once. I guess that, in a way, growing up in such a place, I find myself calmly in the middle of the total and extreme fear and concern, and of, its polar opposite, utter chill and calm and unconcern – it shall pass. Because they always do pass. Like final exams, next week, they will be over and done with, but there is a huge hurdle to get through them to next week. And all we can do is just prepare and then wait.

As I was saying recently to someone, having grown up in southeast Texas, hurricane season, somehow, always gives me a sense of at-home-ness. I guess it is kind of how I felt so comfortable with all of the earthquakes in Japan, because they happened so often (weekly, was the average where I lived). In a way, they were representative of my home there. So, I have this odd sort of affinity for earthquakes now. (In fact, when still living in Japan, it am earthquake didn’t happen for a couple weeks, I would feel so out of sorts, it seemed nuts. When finally one happened again, I felt like I could breathe more easily, more freely again.) And I think the link between hurricanes and my childhood, being with my family through them (and through their aftermaths), has me feel this sense of homeyness and comfort around hurricane season now.

Also, I am rather fascinated with the powerful display of this planet’s abilities of power. Air and water, two things we need to be alive, are the exact things that can take away this life via a hurricane. Yet there is beauty in their power, both figuratively and literally.

Funny: I just realized that I even felt incredibly at-home when we had typhoons in Japan. Just like home, I suppose was the feeling. Haha. How odd this all is…, but that doesn’t make it so any less.

Over the next couple or few days, there is a potential of two hurricanes to pass this way. We shall see what happens, I pray.

P.S. While this has never happened in my lifetime, I think there has never in known history been two such storms developing in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. She’s kind of a one-storm-at-a-time kind of Gulf. ;P

Post-a-day 2020

First loves

I found myself thinking again today – after another long conversation with him, that is – of my high school boyfriend. We are certainly clear that we are of no romantic interest to one another anymore, and are fully satisfied in being friends. However, as I explained last night, there is a part of me that is only filled by him, un trou that likely never will be filled fully, as we never will be in a romantic relationship again. And that’s okay with me. What it had me wondering today was about the irony of my not wanting to be like all the world, yet fitting practically perfectly to the stereotype of the adage, “You never forget your first love.”

I never understood that before today, I think. I always wondered why people spoke so fondly of their first loves, yet they had let their first loves get away or disappear from their lives completely – what kind of love is that? Or so I always wondered. I realize now what it likely really is. When we love someone for the first time – even before we might understand what it means to love someone outside of our families – it is exactly the fact that we have never done it before and never experienced it before that it ends up staying with us throughout our lives. Without the opportunity or intention of keeping ourselves safe or preserved or protected, we dive into our first experience of love wholeheartedly, loving with all of our being, however we can find to love. We have no reservations, and no agenda either – we just live purely and truly and openly and fully. We have never lost our love, and so we don’t even try to cling tightly to it, or mistrust our own feelings around it – we simply love.

When the relationship ends, for whatever reason it may be, we have our first lesson in loss. Yet we, after having been so utterly invested in our love, can never hold anything against our first love. No matter how it ended, the experience of the love remains untouched, pure. But the ending of it keeps us forever on our guard, of course. Likely never again will we love in such a way. Never again will we be so reckless with distributing our love, as we may see it. The free love lives forever in that first and only fully free relationship of love, therefore inducing a nostalgic look of longing for yesteryear whenever we find ourselves reminded of our first love. I’m nowhere near old age, but I already experience just that around my first love.

And I am grateful for it.

I have no desire to reestablish that relationship, yet I always will be grateful for the opportunity to love so fully as I did with my first love.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a perfect opportunity to consider what value may lie in loving so freely again.

Post-a-day 2020

Today

Two things tonight: trash and holes.

First:

Today, I got to experience a delightful little bit of small town life. No one put out the trash this morning, so, once I was up and finished with tutoring, I handled it myself. There were still trash bins all down the street, and, when I had been doing the running for my workout, I discovered that some really reeked… suggesting that they still had trash in them. In fact, it smelled outside period, because of trash. So, I cleaned out the trash cans throughout the house, added their trash to the kitchen bag, and stuck it in the trash bin. I hugged the bin out to the curb, and headed back inside, out a clean kitchen bag and cleaned the trash can lid, and then washed my hands.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. After a pause of contemplating the possibilities and likelihoods, I went and opened the door. An older, grayed and balding yet able-bodied man stood on the doorstep. “I hate to have to say it, but the trash man’s already come today.”

His southeast Texas small town accent only increased the endearment of the whole act. Only in small towns, communities that care openly about one another, does this happen. The other week, my mom said that the fat layer on my arms was due to my having been in the boonies for so long – it was just part of living out here. I laughed really hard at the joke, and told her later how grateful I was again and again at her having given me that silly way to look at the unpleasant situation of having gotten fat where I didn’t want it. That was, nonetheless, one of the drawbacks of small town life. This week, I got to have a positive of small town life, and enjoy the super sweet neighborly kindness that this guy gave freely to me. Just lovely. 🙂

Second:

I talked with my old high school boyfriend this afternoon. We have remained friends these past many years, despite the oh-so-different paths our lives have followed. We don’t talk often, but, when we do, we have to be cut off by some activity of some sort, or else we talk for hours. And we do it with ease. We weren’t just a dating couple in high school. We were really good friends for years first.

Talking today, I noticed how there is a piece of me – un trou – that is filled only by him. It sits just behind my ribs, from the center to the right a few inches or so, and it has a bit of depth to it, though not uniform. I could feel it so incredibly clearly today, I am surprised that I hadn’t fully identified its existence before. It had just been one of those subconscious knowings, I suppose, until today. But now I see and feel how that one spot is filled only by J——–, and it makes my heart, somehow, feel more full. By the knowledge of his absence, he somehow goes everywhere with me, whether I realize or pay attention to it or not. It was a kind of fun realization to have.

While we spoke, I could feel an intangible heat stretching inside my ribs, expanding to fill, at least in part, his space within my being.

Whenever I see him next, I can definitely see myself hugging and hanging tightly around his neck for quite a while – he is so important to me. But it is truly out of love through friendship, not romantic love. Frankly, we are so not interested in one another on a day-to-day or dating level – that’s a hard pass for the both of us. But, just because we are not romantically for one another, doesn’t mean that we cannot improve the foundation of our relationship, and stick with that: friendship.

Anyway, I’m losing focus, both visually and mentally, actually. So, I’m going to end here and do my stretches and reading so I can go to sleep now. Goodnight!!

Post-a-day 2020

He is back

Tonight, my cousin – who is back in town again at last – and I played a kind of duet. I played piano chords, and he played the fretless banjo that he made from cherry tree, a gourd, and a roadkill deer hide, and we both sang. It was “You’ll Be Back” by Lin-Manuel Miranda, from Hamilton. It was spectacular, and totally fun for the both of us.

And it was only one piece from a whole delightful chunk of music for the two of us tonight, all for which I am extremely grateful. 🙂

Happy eyes watched me bounce around with delight and freedom, as we listened to the track of “You’ll Be Back”, and warmed ears heard our self-produced music the whole rest of the time, feeling the passion and love through our notes and words. I even played one of my own songs for my cousin to hear for the first time, and it was basically no big deal to me, in terms of nerves – it was awesomely easy for me to do.

Man…

This late-night / early-morning hangout was a solid one, for sure. 🙂

Thank you… gratitude, dearest World… gratitude… 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Admit the problem

Well, it is semi-official: My arms are fat. Meaning a noticeable chunk of them is fat, not that they are entirely made of fat or anything.

I couldn’t quite figure it out at first, and I wondered if it was that I was getting bulky from the workouts lately, my arm muscles growing too large or disproportionately in some way (though I doubted that I was that strong, it seemed more likely than the alternative). But, after flexing everything I could in my arms, I have found that a whole layer up top will not flex but will wrinkle like cellulite when prompted (read “squeezed”).

I can’t tell if I’m utterly distraught or just disappointed or annoyed, or if I haven’t even begun to react to it yet, because it is so terrible to me.

I’m leaning towards the lattermost, actually.

It’s kind of funny to me how my arms would make me automatically happy, whenever I saw them or saw their reflection in a mirror or something… but now, one of my greatest tiny delights in my everyday has disappeared…

I suppose that the socially acceptable lesson here is to learn to love myself no matter what, to appreciate and love my body at any stage or state of life. And I value such a view. However, it is exactly the fact that I have not valued and loved my body lately that I am in this current situation. If I had respected my body for the beautiful thing that it is, I would not have been so terrible to it, filling it with minimally nutritious (if at all) foods, and hardly doing enough exercise as it deserves to be well kept. So, while I do love my body, I have zero intentions of keeping the arms as they currently are. The fat has got to go – it will be on the fast breath train out of here, beginning tonight, when I sleep. (In case you didn’t know, that’s technically how we release fat from our bodies, is through breathing, once all the breakdowns happen inside our cells.) Tomorrow begins my return to fully taking care of my body both in terms of food and in terms of physical activity.

I know myself. I have been doubting this whole food regime I first took on last summer for the past seven months. I wanted to get back on it, but I just couldn’t get myself to do so. I needed a solid reason, not just one in my head, one with no genuine foundation. Now I have a foundation: eat as I have been eating, and, despite the exercise, I will not have the body and arms I want to have. Theory tested and proven now. Goodbye, not super-healthy foods!

And phew! Thank goodness for that.

🙂

Post-a-day 2020

So much to say

I sometimes feel that I have so much to say that it would take more time and effort to share it than I am willing to put forth. Which then brings up the question of whether it is eve worth saying in the first place… at times, my answer is a yes, and, at others, a no. Even still, though, the yes content is a lot.

So, perhaps that is why I want to write books and books and books – it is the best way to share a lot.

Huh…

I’m going to think on all of that for a while now, and see what I can determine regarding my writing and sharing and what I feel I am here to do in this world…, I’m beginning to feel a stronger than ever connection between the three, and it somehow seems to be the answer to my everyday question of what to do with myself right now…

Post-a-day 2020

Gratitude

I shared the song specifically with a sixth person today. She is the one who helped me when I was ready to be helped out of the abuse situation, when my eyes finally could see just enough clear light to be able to take a much- and long-desired step forward, out of the gray cast of clouds that had taken over my space for so many months. And she loved me freely the whole way through the end, which made all the difference in the world. I still remember how, when I opened the front door to her, close to midnight that night, I had been terrified…, but, when I saw her face, that she was smiling with true love, I felt everything melt away – it was going to be okay. I was going to be okay.

And it all was. And I was and am.

She and I laughed so much that night. I also cried a whole bunch, both from sorrow and annoyance and from laughter. I remember how she took a photo of me at one point, my eyes swollen and red and puffy, yet so full of light, you could see how free and full of life I felt myself being again. I think she took the photo to document that light having returned to me. I suppose, in many ways, that is an extremely beautiful photo.

🙂

So, she helped me through such a hard time of moving away from, essentially, evil. And then, years down the road, we don’t even communicate with one another anymore. I guess her having gotten a boyfriend turned fiancé turned husband played a rather large role in that. I’ve been okay without her in my daily life these past several years. However, I have always valued her love and her role in my life during that time of true need – I think I always will be grateful to her for that.

And so, when I wrote this song yesterday, she was someone who didn’t even have to come to mind – she was already there. I contemplated whether I actually wanted to share the song with her or not, and, after sleeping on it, I knew it was okay to do. (I had sent her a message yesterday to see if I still had her correct number. When she replied today, I took it as a sign to send her the song.)

I thanked her for her love and help in my time of need, and said how it was invaluable to have someone care for me and be with me after my having been alone in abuse for so long. And I sent the song. I’m not even sure I said that I wrote it, actually… but she understood that I had written it, I think.

Okay, I just checked. I did tell her that I wrote it and that I wanted to share it with her.

Anyway, after I’d sent it all to her, it occurred to me how unreal such messages must be to the average person – I mean, who sends messages like that and so totally out of the blue and short and direct like I did? I don’t know many people who do anything of the sort. I know honest people, open people, but that directness and the unexpectedness of the message, with no real lead-in… no, I don’t know those people.

Haha

Just myself. 😀

Anyway, I’m glad I sent it to her and expressed gratitude to her. And I think she appreciated it, too. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Música

I started watching the recordings for another five-day songwriting workshop that a family friend is doing this week. I watched the first video at 11:00 this morning, and glanced st the homework front he next two days before joining the noon live video for today. I’ve done one of these workshops before – that’s what got me those first several songs earlier this summer – so I wasn’t too worried about participating today without having finished the other videos yet. I just followed the guidelines from Monday’s video, and from the snippets I’d watched of Tuesday and Wednesday for the homework for each, and I was ready for today.

While the basic process is rather the same, the approach and specifics were different this time around, so I embraced the opportunity for something new. We were told to find a specific song for inspiration, after doing some topic-finding and lyric-writing work; a song that held a comparable space to the one we wanted our own song to hold.

My song? “When There Was Me And You”, as sung by Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical. And the topic I had chosen and the lyrics I was writing that had this song somehow be appropriate for portraying the write musical feeling? Overcoming emotional and sexual abuse. Kind of an odd combination, don’tchya say?

Nonetheless, it all turned out beautifully. Hours later, after many, many breaks to go do other things and to allow stuff to sit or to mull, I had a completed song, recorded and shared with the world of my social media friends. And, what’s more, I went back to the piano just about ten minutes ago, and I played through the song again – and I remembered how it all went, and I loved the sang (two very good and rather important signs of song completion).

I sent off the audio recording to my small list of private listeners – you could call them the in club of my music-writing – got a bit of feedback (positive – woohoo!), and then shared the video recording of my playing and singing online. We only were supposed to select five people to hear our songs so far as part of our homework tonight… I had forgotten about that until just now… guess I did much more than five… haha… that’s silly.

Anyway, I shared it with four people privately, and I am planning to play it live for a student of mine tomorrow morning, so I guess that handles the five intentional shares, as well as an open share with my somewhat large but private world on social media.

Well… this has felt really, really good today. I even screamed just before showering a bit ago, I was so filled with excitement and energy that I needed to release in order to begin to relax for the night. It was a very, very good and satisfying scream. Man… these songs just feel right. I’ve been wanting to write novels, yet, when I set myself to work for only a few hours on a song, one just kind of evolves like the chia seeds in the chia pet commercials (“Ch-ch-ch-chia!”). Perhaps today was an opportunity for me to see how ideas that get in the way of a different story I want to use for writing my novel, those ideas can go into a song – they can be heard that way. Then, I can go back to writing my novel’s story, no longer with the former distraction of a different story asking to be told. Today’s song topic was definitely one of those ideas…

Hmm… interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to read some young adult fun and then pass out hardcore (Please…).

P.S. My song doesn’t sound almost anything like Vanessa Hudgens’ song, by the way – it started with the same foundation of chords, but quickly developed into a very different song. If I hadn’t told you they were connected, you likely never would have noticed. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

The music in me

Na-nah-naah-na….

Na-nah-naah-na…. yeah…

Well, I have been watching the glorious High School Musical stuff over the past several days, and I am in love all over again. But it feels a bit different this time… this time, it keeps making me want to perform – to sing and dance, to play piano and share music with the world… and it has been making me want to write more songs again. I had a bout of that back in April and May, I believe it was, and then I stopped. I expressed everything that was needing to be expressed at the time through music. And it now feels like music wants to be expressed, instead of specific experiences and thoughts. Perhaps, I am filled with sentiments now that are ready to begin producing solid form through music… an artistic 3-D, let’s say.

And there just so happens to be another songwriting workshop happening this week…, so, I think I know what is on my schedule for the rest of this week, now. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Ouch

Well, my bum hurts… a lot… (Okay, now I am laughing, because that just sounds so totally charged with sexual innuendo, and get it is absolutely not one bit sexual.) So, the showerhead broke, because it’s actually made of plastic at the part where it screws onto the pipe, and it just kind of split. That means that, despite the double and triple efforts of duct taping the pipe and connection piece, a bunch of water comes out of the duct tape instead of the showerhead itself, making the water flow significantly decreased from usual. To stand under the full water flow – from the showerhead and the leaking part combined – one must stand directly beneath the pipe and showerhead, as opposed to out in front, as would be the place to stand under normal circumstances.

Now, imagine showering in this setting, and dropping a bar of soap. You squat down carefully to pick up the bar, and stand back up at a rather normal standing up speed… only to have your bum suddenly be on fire after hearing a loud clanking and feeling a big bash on your backside – you have just perfectly slammed and scraped your backside upward against and across the large bathtub faucet… the faucet that typically is a couple feet behind you when you’re showering, thereby rendering you shocked and confused at first… but then you recall the leaky water situation, and realize that you had not at all factored that into the squatting and standing back up scenario…

That was, essentially, the portrait of me last night. I now have an inch-long cut, a two point five inch-long red line on either side of it, a few deep red spots around it, and a bruised and lighter red area of about two point five inches by one inch to hold it all together. And it still burns, 24 hours after the incident even happened, let alone the dull pain of the hit’s bruise.

So, yeah, my butt hurts.

I actually couldn’t even put on my underwear all the way for quite a while last night, the skin burned so much from the cut (which had bled a surprising amount, considering so much of the butt is fat and all). And I couldn’t sit normal or lie down either for a long while. Instead of going to bed as I had planned, I stayed up and watched a film on the sofa, sitting on my side, allowing the cut to close up enough safely with the medicine, as well as stop hurting so much that I couldn’t let anything touch it.

Now, it is mostly just a matter of not letting anything rub across the skin there, nor pushing too hard against the area. Otherwise, it is doing rather well, and really just keeps reminding of my other butt injury this year, in which, while fixing a wedgie, my fingernail caught the skin at the base of my spine and top of my butt, right in the middle, and scraped off a whole inch-ish-long chunk. Yes, a chunk. It bled a lot, and all over my underwear – such a weird situation that one was(!).

Basically, I’m just wondering how many more of these absolutely ridiculous butt injuries I am going to be causing myself the rest of this year… or even my life. The last was in January in Japan, and this one is August in Southeast Texas. What will happen in another six-ish months, pray?

😛

…………….

In a totally separate note, I received official word this morning that my gym is closing at the end of this month, permanently. He had too many people drop memberships and all, so it is the safe and smart thing for him to do financially for himself and his family (the owner, I mean). While it is conceptually heartbreaking, I realize that my intense depression last month was very much regarding the fact that, while most everyone else was back at the gym as usual, and I was staying home because it was what we were told was the safest idea for the time besting in our city, I had a feeling that I wasn’t just missing out for now, but that I was missing out for good – that I wouldn’t ever be going back to the gym. Being upset over this idea as being real seemed irrational of me at the time, which only added to the sense of loss and the depression. However, now that I am on the other side of the depression and intense struggle, I have now dealt with the relevant concerns that were at its root…, including the idea of my never going back to that particular gym again. So, while the news is, well, new, I have already gone through the emotional turmoil of not being able to go to the gym ever again, so I don’t feel any need to go through it again – I’ve already handled that one!

Yes, it is sad that the gym is closing – it was a spectacular space filled with love and support that made huge impacts on many lives, mine included. However, it is both a new opportunity for the owner, as well as for me. As “High School Musical” so happily belted out for me tonight, it’s the start of something new – and I can feel it, and I am ready this time. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020