postaday – Page 11 – hannah ananas

Missing…

I miss my bed in Japan. My bedroom, especially, is one thing I miss most these days. It was a haven for me. No matter what kind of chaos or boredom lurked in my life, every night, my bedroom awaited me in calm, open, and empty space… in beauty. I shut my doors, and was safe in my retreat from everything else. Only love and blessings were ever allowed into my bedroom. I wasn’t even allowed to walk in it if I hadn’t recently showered. Clean clothes, my ukulele and ukulele music, my nighttime books, and water and tissues were just about all that ever went in there, aside from a clean me and my bed.

My bedroom now is slightly larger, but filled with boxes and stuff… a sentimentality to which I am not so sure I still want to cling. I think I am afraid that I will forget the memories, if I get rid of the objects. I do not, for the most part, want the objects, but the memories and the ways I felt. Without the objects, what will remind me?

Post-a-day 2017

An unhappy belly and body

Today, I am not well… bad not well. I’ve poured forth the sparse contents of my stomach three terrible times, complete with crying and a near-inability to hold myself up during it. Someone offered to call an ambulance for me, even. God, heal me, please.

Post-a-day 2017

ukulele, poke, and cray-zay

(Those all rhyme, in case you were wondering.)

Tonight, again, I spent some time with friends after school. I napped briefly in the car, while I waited for them to arrive at our early dinner location. We had a silly time figuring out how to order our Poke (think of a short “okay” with a p in the front), and chatted and ate and chatted some more, before heading outside to chat and dance and do acrobatic bits (because, why would we not do such things?). We were all a bit tired, but only ended our time together, because the two of them had to go pack (one is moving apartments tomorrow, and the other is leaving to visit Australia for vacation).

At lunchtime, I had a Spanish-speaking lunch with some students, while I played ukulele alongside one of them. I dragged kids through knowledge, forcing them to think and do well on their tests – I actually handed some tests back immediately, telling them, “No,” go fix this stuff. After school, I played a birthday song for a different student, and gave her a guitar string ring I made in Japan (not because she’s my favorite or anything, but because she always steals my jewelry during class, and hopes I won’t make her give it back. So, I figured I’d give her something of her own that was sort of mine. It was fun playing the song and singing for her. I had forgotten how fulfilling it was, when I’d sung for my dad’s 64th birthday (“When I’m 64” by the Beatles, of course).

Yes, I feel satisfied in my day today. It was good and fulfilling, an oddly uncommon combination for me in recent years. I am delighted with this having happened twice this week. I look forward to the next one and many to come. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

My life/books

I sometimes worry that I read to escape my life. This is not to say that I find a need to escape my life, but merely that I grow a sort of addiction to a good book, because the story within the book is so much better than my own. I long for the life I see in the story, and so throw myself into it as much and as often as possible… thereby stepping away from my own life for a good chunk of time, temporary though it is.

Unlike Kathleen Kelly in “You’ve Got Mail”, I do not find interesting things happening in books versus in my own life – I do find myself doing amazing and interesting things that I almost never have read in books. However, similar to her, I long for something that I find in these books. I long for the outside influences of people who love one another – I want to be loved like true love in a story. I have faith in myself for a successful, beautiful story of accomplishments… I am not so sure about others taking up their roles within my own story… Perhaps this isn’t really making sense… I’ll retire for the night. I’m stilted, putting these inward emotions into outward words, and I’m not liking the result so far. Hmm…

Post-a-day 2017

Satisfaction… at last

Tonight, going to bed, I feel fulfilled. Typically, I have this feeling of needing to go do something before I can end my day. I am angsty and somewhat agitated by the late afternoon, and I feel this pull from somewhere inside of me, but I can’t ever quite figure out how to follow it, how to satisfy the desire within. I notice right now that I almost didn’t even feel a pull to write anything tonight – that’s how satisfied I am with my day. It was fabulous, and so I can sleep easily, without anything else happening first. And I love writing, so that’s saying something.

Kids were unintentional rude in classes today, ignoring my pleas for quite voices, so that I could be heard with my pained, achy throat barely able to choke out words. I let them spend the time with an activity for their own benefit, and most of them ignored it or didn’t care enough about their own education to attempt the activity, which was disappointing. A few really took it on, and some decided it was time to talk with me about anything and everything in my life, while I showed them how to do some of the work. It was an odd balance of awesome and disappointing, combined with my throat being slightly consumed by a low-grade fire.

After school, I chatted with a few teachers from my own high school, plus a friend who now teaches there. That was amazing in and of itself. Add to it that I met up with a friend for tapioca tea afterward, and my day continues to improve. We ended up having dinner with the teas, and then she invited me to join a hip-hop class with her. Neither of us has ever been very good or experienced with hip-hop, but we love dancing, and we both have strong partner dance backgrounds. I have wanted to do hip-hop classes ever since my best friend and her husband started doing some over in England a few years back, because she is just plain awesome, and it is always a good idea to strive for her level of awesome. So I got to be cool like my bestie tonight, and turned out to be actually kind of good at the routine, too. The teacher even came specifically to my friend (not my best friend, but the friend with whom I had gone to the class) and me, and told us that she wanted us to join her team. (Note: Seeing as we were just discussing before the class how we hadn’t been involved in anything dance since moving back to the US (we both just returned from living in Asia), we are genuinely considering this hip-hop team idea.)

Now, I am home. I snacked on some leftovers from dinner, chatted briefly with my mom, and have just showered. I am tired, but in a really good way right now – I am satisfied. I don’t know how else to word it. I am just satisfied, which is something, I now see, that I usually am not at the end of the day. As I said to my teacher friend earlier this afternoon, I need interaction with non-teenagers. I get so much teenager interaction, and very little of anything else… and I need more than just interaction with teenagers, no matter how wonderful they are or how much we may love one another. And, tonight, I got that other interaction, plus involvement in something (the hip-hop class) and exercise. That is a really, really good combination. Now to see how to keep this up, happening much more often than once every three months.

Post-a-day 2017

Hers, mine, & ours

I have been teaching during someone’s maternity leave recently, and I discovered something today – when the teacher returns, I will have been with the students more than she has. Just now, I checked the calendar, and it seems that I have already been with them for longer than she was, due to Hurricane Harvey. It is odd to me to consider that these kids would be more my students than her students. It is her class, and I have always seen it that way. So have the kids. And so we likely will continue to live in this odd little my world within her world setup, where the kids are, indeed, mine, but we are all hers. Something like that, anyway.

I will miss these kids. If I really think about it, …well, no I don’t do that. Whenever I begin actually to consider it, my eyes grow hot and threaten an outpouring of tears. I suppose I really do love the kids so much, even though they drive me frustrated so often as they do. They know I love them, and so do I. And it is difficult to consider that I no longer will see these people who have been part of my daily life for so long, and as we all have worked through so much together.

A teacher friend of mine sent me a message tonight, saying how we needed to do something, because she missed me. It turns out that neither one of us has done much other than school lately. This time in particular, even more so than other times I have taught, the students are my social interactions in life. I call my mom in the evenings, because I am craving adult interaction. I don’t have interaction with friends. I just have these kids. In a sense, they are my friends, and I have no others (whom I see, anyway). And so I will miss them all greatly, and even some of the stupid stresses they force upon me, like throwing ice at one another in class or unknowingly rejecting a beautiful opportunity to learn and to help themselves become beautiful successes in life. Yes, I will miss these kids who are not mine, but mine. I love them dearly.

Post-a-day 2017

Sexy, not Sex

I think that I am afraid of being sexy, due to the risk of falling under the description of “sexual”. I believe that there is a time and a place for sexy, and that it is an appropriate way to present oneself in the world… just not myself. Or do I believe it acceptable? …Yes, I do. Sexy, not sexual, is entirely acceptable in my book, given the appropriate time and place. As a teacher at school, no. As someone at a dinner event, yes. Being “hot” is not off limits to me, and yet I believe there is something deep inside of me that is terrified of it. Of being it, I mean.

Perhaps I merely fear that it would be interpreted as a call for sexual intercourse, therefore not only labelling me as “slutty”, but also attracting unwanted advances by men toward that unintended message. I want to be sexy, because I can be sexy, not because I want sex. I want to have the body, because I can have the body, and I find the body entrancingly beautiful. I don’t want it for some man, but for myself and for myself alone. However, I do not want to have to hide it, to keep it only to myself and to avoid allowing others to notice. I want to be able to go into public with it, because it is part of who I am, and I need not be ashamed of it. Just as I have gone into public in my pajamas or with a towel in my hair, I want to be able to go out dressed in “sexy”: comfortably.

Yet where is that distinction between sexy and sexual for me? i would say that it is intention, but I do not feel safe in such a distinction. I do not want to have sex with the people around me, and I do not want them to attempt to or want to have sex with me. But I am still terrified that I will come across that way. Really, though, I must be kidding myself a bit here – I fear this regularly, not just when I dress up or want to dress up. I have this fear present simply in the way I walk or the clothes I wear daily. I envy the way some women dress, and cannot consider my actually wearing the same outfit… even though it is beautiful on them, and likely would be on me, too. Why? Because of this inner terror of coming across as sexual and desiring something specific (i.e. sex) from those around me.

What’s with me? Is this really all just tied to one incident of things been utterly misunderstood about me? I’d like to think that the one incident doesn’t have such power, if any, over me still today. I’m not so sure, though. I will consider this actively over the coming days and weeks…

Post-a-day 2017

As though in response to this post from last night, the world presented me with this article tonight, from a pile of my old papers through which I was sorting.

Is it tomorrow already?

Sometimes, I fear tomorrow. Not because I fear the dawn or what is to come, but because I worry that I have not done enough with today, and that the feeling will drag into tomorrow, as well. I am exhausted and I want to sleep, yet I have lain awake (just barely) in my bed for over half an hour already. I accomplished much today, both physically and mentally, and I had a wonderful time with my mom, sharing most of the day with her, loving one another well and clearly. But today is Saturday, and tomorrow is Sunday. I have so little time during the weekdays right now, that I feel a compulsion to make each weekend fully “worth it”. Today was great, and yet I worry that Monday will arrive, and I will wish I had done something more over the weekend. To be fair, though, I typically wish that I had had more sleep over the weekend, more so than wishing I’d done anything else. How odd… perhaps it is best, then, that I sleep now.

Post-a-day 2017

Singing to the unprepared listeners

My mom and I pondered the questions, “When did you last sing for someone else? For yourself?” the other night at dinner together. She chuckled when I first read it aloud, and answered how I had sung to a kid at school. I sing a lot, and hum and whistle often, too. But that one was a special one.

It was an odd day, with only about half of my students in class, and I had already done the lesson with the missing half the day beforehand, so I knew it was and easy and short lesson. I let the kids take their time for the warm-up, leaving them to chat around the room, as well as around my desk. When I sent the kids at my desk away to go do their warm-ups, one of them said, “I’m so tired,” with a it of emphasis on the last word. Without any hesitation beyond the appropriate amount of timing between the phrases in the actual song, I responded in song.

…of fallin’ in love
I’m finding it easier,
to fall out
I can’t deny it,
I feel it inside
I’ll keep its fire,
Oh, you can’t hide

I’m fallin’ in love again
Ain’t nothing I can do
Fallin’ in love again
And this time its with you
When I fall,
it’s always the same
And I’m so tired
of playing this game

Been so long now
since I gave up my heart
I’ve kept it locked down
I don’t want to get it harmed
So let me tell you now
I just want to be sure
that you won’t hurt me
Can you promise me that?

I’m fallin’ in love again
Ain’t nothing I can do
Fallin’ in love again
And this time its with you
When I fall,
it’s always the same
And I’m so tired
of playing this game

The kids asked me questions as I sang, but I just kept on singing to them, and even danced around a tiny bit, too. Who knows what they thought about it, but they weren’t upset by the incident, nor were they mean about it. They seemed really joyful and somewhat giddy from it all.

I played the actual song via the computer after I finished my own singing, and my brief explanation as to why I even knew the song (my college neighbor in the dorm my freshman year always played it on her guitar). Then we continued on with the lesson, having music playing in the background every time they got up to do practice problems and the likes. We had some Moana to go with our Eagle Eye Cherry, and it was good. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

a day to consider my life

I stayed home from school today, sick. Just like when I was younger, my mom made me feel guilty for even considering staying home. That is one thing that I do not miss about living in a different country from my mom. I fully thought through the situation, before deciding anything – if I had had anyone else feeling as I felt this morning, I would have wanted the person to stay home (and also stay away from me). This was not about disliking my work, as it has been in the past at times. I was genuinely sick (and still am).

My mom doesn’t get sick very often, and only has a sort of slight cold, whenever she does get sick. But she gets to sleep. I used to be like that, rarely getting sick, and having it be mild, just requiring water and a single night’s sleep to rid myself of it. But working life stole my long nights of sleep and weekends of rest, and traded stress and distaste for them. I clearly am not a fan of the trade – I now get sick regularly, though mostly just when it’s cold out.

So, today, I stayed home, sick. I handled what I needed for work, gargled some warm salt water, and then went back to sleep. I woke up once, in desperate need of a potty break, and then downed some more water, and went back to sleep. I didn’t really get up until my second potty break awakening, and, even then, I only got up, because it was 1:30pm, not because I felt ready to get up.

Now, late at night, I am hardly able to stay awake to accomplish my bedtime goals, despite my sleep from last night. I am only awake this late anyway, because my mom and I agreed to watch a film together, and it was pushed back, and then paused and rewound so many times, that our initial ending time of 9:30pm was much later.

Anyway, the whole point of this is that 1) I need more sleep in my daily life (or nightly, I suppose), 2) I really enjoyed spending the day working on some writing (that’s what I did, once I was awake and having tea), and 3) I found today ironic. While I was in Japan, all alone so often, including when I was sick, and just longing to have someone be with me, like it had been back in the USA, I had longed to have someone spend time with me and take care of me when I was feeling poorly, and expected to find that once back in the US. But I was all alone today, on my first sick day in the USA. And I really got to be alone with my thoughts, which was useful and somewhat frightening. I have much more to consider in my life right now, and today helped me to see some unique parts of it all.

A fun final piece of my illness today, is that I discovered it surprisingly satisfying to eat the heads of Darth Vader and the Clones in my Star Wars SpaghettiOs. I haven’t had SpaghettiOs in years, but this was a fun one to have, especially for being sick.

Post-a-day 2017