Take time to breathe.
Take time to breathe.
Poetry does not have to look like poetry.
The beauty occurs in the spaces between. In order to invite beauty, a little space can go a long way.
It’s the end of the year, and like all holidays, it’s a reminder to me that I’m on a different rhythm. The colander date merely indicates a passage of time for me, and a period in which I’ll need to adjust my habits because the world around me has decided that this week is somehow different from others.
It’s not as if I don’t see the value in a time in which everyone can take a break. I just don’t see what I need to take a break from. My schedule is up entirely to my students and my mood. And since they are taking a break, I’m taking a break, from class.
But that’s just a regular day off for me. It doesn’t make sense to travel when everyone else is traveling. Everything costs more and more importantly everywhere is crowded although shops are closed.
It’s not that this countries culture isn’t mine. It’s that no country is.
In Japan people go to the shrine on New Years, not even to pray seriously, but because it’s just what they do, something they learned they should do every year, the same way you may visit a relatives grave or wear a lucky tie to an interview.
I used to follow this tradition to immerse myself in the culture, in the same way I celebrated my birthday, because I thought I should.
But now for my birthday and for these holidays I take them as a chance to breathe. Not to relax. Not to decompress. I’m pretty decompressed as it is. I don’t need a break as much as everyone in their 9-5’s. But I do need a reminder that life is meant to be enjoyed and that the possibility for enjoyment exists in every moment.
So I spend my birthdays alone, and unless there is something particularly awesome going on, I’ll probably spend this holiday alone as well, with my partner but doing my own thing or enjoying a walk together. Nothing special at all.
We may stop in to a party for an hour just to say hi. We haven’t prepared anything special. We don’t want anything special. Just some space to enjoy a walk and to do what we usually do a little slower.
That’s really all I want or need out of a holiday.
In the modern day, too many people are synchronized to the same schedule. I’d rather wait til the roads are quiet and the hotels are cheap, or when there’s an event that actually looks fun, rather than trying to be extra festive just for the sake of being festive.
I’ll write, but with less urgency.
I’ll play some music.
I’ll look at a flower or a tree.
I’ll listen to some podcasts, currently listening to “Telepathy Tapes” about investigations into kids with autism who have experience with telepathy and other so-called supernatural phenomena.
I’ll play a few games. I’m about to finish Final Fantasy 6, a game I put off almost 20 years. I will start Assassin's Creed odyssey which I played through the entire series to get to. And I’ll keep studying Japanese through the cutscenes from Xenoblade 2. I’ve already learned 200 words from this game and I guess there will be another 1000-1500 to learn.
I’m glad each game seems to have fewer words to study. I wonder how many it’ll be before I don’t need a dictionary at all to get through it. I guess another 4 or 5 games, another 4000-5000 words.
I have the last finishing touches of that translation project that has been weighing on me all winter.
Mostly I want to play some guitar while I know I won’t be bothered by anything.
I will be putting my demos up on Spotify and Apple this New Year, that is really all I have planned 😃
Have a Happy New Year, I’ll probably tell you once more before the clock strikes 12 since we are still more than a day away (I thought it was the 31st hahaha)
❤️
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