new year – hannah ananas

1 January, folks

It is the first of January in the year 2022. How absurdly bizarre is that????! It just sounds like the future. Frankly, the 1980s seem closer to now than 2022. And yet here we are, in the faraway year of 2022, with the 80s…, well, a long time past.

I almost feel out of place, anachronistic in this world right now… and in more ways than one. That song I wrote recently is really big for me right now, with its whole thing on feeling I don’t belong and people not needing to be colorblind but just plain loving and kind, to see people for who they are instead of what they are. ::sighhhhhhhhh

Thank you, God, for this life. Please, with the Universe, help me to be Your love and to step forward fully and courageously all the days (and nights and sunrises and sunsets and moments of infinities) of my life. Help me, please, to find clearly my intention for this year, the year 2022 and Reiwa 4, that I might express it through my kakizome tomorrow, which will guide, support, empower, and remind me all throughout this year. Give me Your divine message tomorrow as I discover my kakizome for this year and begin to implement and be it tomorrow. In Your name I pray. Amen.

P.S. This is the first year in a very long time – a hundred years, in fact – that will not have had the wonderful woman of Betty White in it. Thank you, (God and) Betty, for all that you did and all the love that came out of your existence and how you shared yourself so lovingly with the world at large and at small. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2021

(Clearly, that ^ is not correct…)

Post-a-day 2022

(Wow, that seems weird!)

Incense – cough cough

Here’s the deal: I made this new year’s incense with my mom. It smells lovely in the jar. I burned some at the start of the month, using only a small piece of charcoal (as I was about to go to bed, and didn’t want to use a whole charcoal for only one little bit of incense). It worked beautifully, and smelled amazing. All went well.

Then, a few days later, I wanted to burn some more of the incense. I used a half of a charcoal this time, instead of just a tiny piece, because I was going to be up for a while, and so could add incense as it burned down. Almost immediately, the whole room started filling with smoke. And I know incense smokes. But this was different. It was like fire smoke. So, for fear of 1) smoking myself out and 2) setting off the fire alarm, I doused the whole thing with water.

I then left it a while – meaning days – before I returned to burn some again. Two attempts later, I had a very similar result. No, it was not quite as smoky as that second time. It was still rather smoky, though. And, get this: it didn’t even burn down all the incense. So, I’m not even sure what was burning to be all smoky. I need to defer to my mom on this one, as I genuinely am unsure as to what is going on here. (To be fair, though, I could just be exhausted and not thinking straight. Genuine possibility. 😛 )

Post-a-day 2021

^ Remembered as I was writing it, so got it technically on the first effort!

January 1, 2021

A new year has begun on the calendar. I already wrote the date wrong today, the first time I was writing it, and don’t even notice until the second time I was getting it wrong. But I corrected the second one and wrote 2021 going forward from there. 😛

It doesn’t feel life a different year or anything. It just feels like another today. And it is just another today. It is filled with endless possibilities, as is every other today that ever has existed and that ever will exist. Such is life, in such terrifying beauty. 😉

My mom and I watched the sunrise on the beach this morning – the first sunrise of the year. It is a Japanese tradition that I still like to follow. My mom pointed out to me that the only other people out on the beach for sunrise were also Asian. Well, they were Asian, that is, and we were consciously practicing an Asian custom. (Funny how that came out so naturally at first.) Nonetheless, it was lovely and kind of magical. I’d never attended a beach sunrise where the sun wasn’t completely blocked by full cloud coverage before today.

Enjoy a few photos from it here:

Oh, and it was almost freezing out there (quite literally), and it was very windy.

I wish you a happy, happy year this year – May you embrace the beautiful, bountiful possibilities that each of these 365 days offers to you.

Post-a-day 2021

Look at that!! ^

Happy New Year: A Completion of 2020

I am proud of myself for trusting myself this year. I am proud of myself for keeping true to and using my heart in so much of what I have done, both big and small, and also all in between.

I am grateful that I did both of those this year, and I am especially grateful that, often without my realizing it, they were my kakizome at play in my daily life, slowly transforming me further into an expression of my true self.

Arigatougozaimasu ありがとうごさいます😊

I am a bit nervous regarding what is next, and I think it is because I am reaching a sort of crossroads. Something very true to myself is at a nearby turn, but it is scary to go a new path for me. It is usually thrilling and wonderful and amazing, and I am usually grateful to have done it after the fact, but it is scary nonetheless. So, I am scared. And I am stepping forward nonetheless – terrified and confident, full of self-trust/self-confidence and heart (jishin to kokoro 自信と心 [my kakizome]) – creating what is next for me and my life. 🙂 🙏🐪

I wish you all a happy, lovely, love-filled and love-expressed new year. Akemashite omedetou! 明けましておめでとう！！

Post-a-day 2020

Happy New Year!

Thus begins the actual longest year of my life!

Cebu, Philippines, has begun the new year, the year that seemed so absurdly far away when I first considered it that it felt as though it would never come… 2020.

The music was actually really great at the celebration here at the hotel, and we all kind of fell in love with these two songs called “I love Cebu”.

My brother kept calling, unintentionally, the adorable little boy an approximation of the Japanese word for “tuna”, instead of his actual yet similar name.

We all talked and played and then, just after midnight, danced on the beach.

It was a good night, and now I am beyond ready to pass out, hard core.

Akemashite omedetou, everyone – I wish you all a happy new year.

🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Longest and Shortest Years

Okay, please exclude February 29th from existence for this reading and any further conversation on the topic. Kay, thanks. 😉

……………………………………………

Thus ends the longest year of my life. It began in Tokyo, Japan and ended in Houston, Texas, thereby making it 13 hours longer than any regular year in my life. Last year, 2016, was the shortest year of my life by 13 hours, because it was reversed: It began in Houston, Texas and ended in Tokyo, Japan.

Before this year, my shortest year had been 2012, beginning in Houston and ending in Vienna, Austria, making it 7 hours shorter than usual, and making 2013, which ended in Houston, 7 hours longer than usual. Those years are now in second place for the shortest and longest years of my life.

Fun, huh? 😛

When I was little, I made several lists of things I wanted to do in my life. I remember writing into one at some point that I wanted to live the longest and shortest year possible one day. That means spending one December 31-January 1 in the first time zone, the following in the last time zone, and then the third in the first time zone again. I now actually have friends in both locations, so it is totally possible. Let’s see if I can pull it off, shall we?

…………………………………………..

Just to drive me nuts, these had to clash with leap years, instead of working with them. I’ll get there some day, I imagine. I’ve gotten so close without even putting forth a conscious effort already. I can only imagine what I’ll pull off in the future. And I know it will begin with the January first of a leap year, whenever it happens. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017