Why are we ever mean to others? Really, truly… why?
Can we go Taylor Swift on the situation, and have the cycle end right now?
I see potential in this, but are we brave enough? Is bravery even what it is that we need? Perhaps love is all we need. And not even in the cheesy way, but truly. Beatles it all the way, because all we need is love.
Post-a-day 2017
I don’t know what it is, but something has me unconcerned on the whole. I don’t quite have a place to live after this month. I don’t quite have a well-enough-paying job as of this week. I don’t have any health or dental insurance once I move back to Texas next month. And yet, here I am, trying to get myself worked up, because I am not already concerned about these things.
Why am I unconcerned? I don’t know. There is something in the air though, that tells me that everything is okay, everything will be perfect once I’m back home. So, I am trusting. I am keeping an open mind, and I am listening when things come up.
Let us see where this takes me next month… 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
Making my way through the nonsense that is the Shibuya Crossing on a holiday afternoon, I am feeling almost desperate to be on a train home. There are just so many people in my way, with no respect for my desire to be not here. Not that I actually expect them to know I want not to be here – I am merely noting their ignorance to the matter. I am almost to the station, when a small but clear opening appears right ahead of me in the shuffling crowd.
I hardly have to think – in fact, I think I know what it is without thinking – to recognize the colorful lettering on the page of that folded-open notebook being held just above people’s heads.
FREE HUGS
I hesitate a moment, verifying that the holder of the sign is respectable/huggable. Despite my being in Japan, I accept that this young Japanese guy is holding the sign, and trust that he knows what it means. Perhaps especially because I am in Japan, actually.
He’s young and Japanese, and he looks trustworthy. I throw open my arms, and instantly see his face light up, as he says an adorable “Sahn kyuu!” (How the average Japanese pronunciation goes for ‘Thank you.’) We embrace, and it is solid and long and wonderfully perfect. I return the verbal thanks, with emphasis on thanking him for the hug (as opposed to his thanking my willingness or whatever on my end), give a gloriously contended smile, and go on my merry way the last few yards to the station.
I savor the experience, and especially the loving hug, as I wander goofily through the crowds up to the tracks. Thank you, God. You gave me just what I needed in order to feel I was heading the right way just now. I am in the right place right now, and it is perfect. Thank you.
Post-a-day 2017
Today, I did some fun things including showing up my friend at children’s games, but I don’t feel like sharing about that right now. I feel like being philosophical, ponderous… something like that. And yet, here I lie with almost no thoughts, no words in mind or even on their way. I am listening to the guitar upstairs, and what sounds like company sharing in the music for once (it is Saturday night, after all). I am somewhat worried about the next couple months, specifically regarding how they will unfold. I fear regrets, especially for after I have left this country, and am back living in my own. I fear my being wonderful and amazingly successful in my endeavors once I’m back there. I fear letting go of my endeavors in exchange for something safe. I fear not becoming myself, not being myself once I am back there in a seemingly unchanged world as an incredibly changed person. Someone told us to take a picture of ourselves before we begin this time in Japan. I had forgotten to do that before leaving home, but I took a picture in the elevator on my way down to our very first meeting on my first day of orientation here. I wonder what I will see different in my final photo as I say goodbye to this place. I know that the two people in the photos are similar, however, they are in no way the same. I loved and still do love who the former person was, and I do not want to become her again.
These are things that are sitting in my being right now. If you would have asked me before I wrote this, what I was thinking, I couldn’t have told you. But now, as I have written this, I can see clearly that this is what was resting in my mind, in my heart, in my bones and flesh and breath… in fact, somewhat restricting my breath…, and that that is why I do not care to share the joys of today, but feel myself to be of a philosophical persuasion at present. I could have lived with the greats right now.
Post-a-day 2017
I find it amazing how it is somewhat terrifying to face an old circumstance as a new person. When one has changed so much – one could even say that a transformation has occurred, at times – that the behaviors previously associated with a certain circumstance seem incredibly strange, not you, almost foreign. And yet… when the circumstances present themselves for the first time since this transformation of the self, the transformation seems to rush to the corner, preparing to cower and disappear until the circumstances go away.
I say all of this, because I find myself tonight in one of those circumstances. I was once a very active member in this portion of the dance community. Who I was and how I was when I last was really involved, they are completely different from who and how I am now. Especially through all of my struggles, and my rustling self-improvement and self-empowerment these past 8-ish months, I am not the same person as I was back then, in the dance world. However, tonight is the first time that I am really back in that world – it is the first time the new self meets the old circumstances.
And so, as I began tonight’s events with the dance community, my comfortable calm from earlier in the evening began quickly to quaver, giving me a sense of panic, overall discomfort, and rather short breaths.
However, I was able to notice these things happening to me, almost as though I were metely an observer of the events, and not the one actually experiencing them. In doing that, I was able to make sense of the situation – I began to panic, because panicky stress was who I was being when last I was in this world of dance. I had never known this world as the new self, and it was so second-nature for me to behave the old way, as I had done it so often for so long.
So, instead of panicking further about my panicking, or letting the old ways take hold, I thanked them for sharing their thoughts, and evaluated the actual situation in front of me. Do I actually care about such-and-such? No, not really. Other people see it differently, though. Am I okay with that? Yes, I actually am. Okie doke.
And suddenly I am free of the stress, and I get to be myself again, and freely so. And it is wonderful. It is still a bit terrifying, thinking of going fully back into this world in the coming months and year. However, this rough but groundbreaking start was a great way to get the ball rolling, and to encourage and empower me to be my true self, no matter what.
Post-a-day 2017
What to write…? What to write…?
Of legends? Of thoughts? Or of tonight?
Do I analyze something maturely,
Or speak from the heart purely?
Shall I cry or weep with relief,
Or in a blow of deleaf… defeat?
What is the point (Shall I write about that?)?
My efforts feel pointless, and quite often, in fact.
But what does that matter, when the measure is of others, not myself?
For this is not just another trophy for my nonexistent shelf.
It is whole and complete, and perfect, you see,
for it is meant as a place to express for I, myself, and me.
Post-a-day 2017
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
I sometimes feel like it’s just a whole lot of nonsense that I’m writing on here.* And I sometimes wonder about why I even bother, because it feels like a whole lot of nonsense. Yet, there is something that these writings do for me. Somehow, they open up something within me… perhaps it’s that they’re helping me to be the me that I not only truly am, but also want to be.
I don’t know, of course, as everything is just conjecture here. But there is something about this weblog that is huge for me, in an almost-tangible way. I can feel my breathing ease whenever I think about what this weblog is for me. It’s like me being me or something.
Anyway, it means a lot to me, even though I’m not quite sure what it all is, and even though it feels like a bunch of… well, nothings. Hmm… guess it really is a lot like Kathleen Kelly after all. 😛
Anyway, I just wanted to share that. So thanks for letting me write, world, and thanks, Nicole, for getting me on this weblog in the first place, and for holding me accountable and helping me win a plan with which I could work. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017
*If you’re seeing an odd parallel to Kathleen Kelly right now, too, bonus points to you. 🙂
hannah ananas 