the end of a pause

Ola!

I made a pact with myself to resume writing, after the inadvertent hiatus that was last year. This blog, except for the year 2023, has witnessed my life since my early teens. And now, I am back...

Because I believe I should write. Writing has served me, and while my life has changed and I can't quite enter the same writing rituals I was used to, I feel like... my soul needs this space. I need to start articulating again, beyond book club, haha. Book Club has grown quite admirably, and I have consistently used it, subconsciously or not, as the space for the expression of some of my inner life. But this blog: was the template. The haven for it. And I feel almost indebted, obligated, to come back.

So here is a first step, to the next segment of life. I'm not sure how my format will change, if at all. I might be more structured with my writing than I ever was previously, by necessity: so it's likely I will do a regular monthly posting (unless it strikes my fancy to slot in something in between). I'm not sure if I should speak on a theme, or let it free flow. I suppose I'll figure it out as we go along.

Ja!

I just finished a long appraisal discussion with some psychologists, reflecting on the year, and I am feeling pensive. This is a good time as any to post the requisite annual end-year reflection post, whilst I am in the mood.

I am feeling somewhat slightly more balanced than the morning, when I woke up. I've been mulling, in and out of emotional troughs, that maybe, I've been looking at the question all wrong. I feel like an internal perspective shift is happening, but happening at a creakily slow pace, with the accompanying resistance and squeaks. That's how I feel this end of the year. I also feel the adage is true: life does not necessarily get easier, but that you get better at it the longer you do it. And that makes life better (if I make sense).

I just feel like posting a random cute picture here.

So, in summary, I still feel confused and pained and excited and disappointed and curious and sad and hopeful and afraid... but processing everything in a disarmingly calm manner. I wonder if I am in danger of only observing the world and making commentary of it.

Happy 2023, and may the answers come to me in miraculous ways, insyAllah.

 I disrupt my admin work to post this beautiful thing here. 

It's been a while since I've posted something BTS.

This is why I've always loved Namjoon and why BTS is as awesome as they are; 

the way he just brings poetry across...

and always talking about being real, and authentic, and wanting to get to the depths of things.

💜

Kamikochi means 'where Gods descend'

Checking in to share that Kamikochi was awesome, and I'll likely want to keep revisiting this place sporadically throughout my life. Of course, we visited some other places in Japan (two new spots for me! i.e. Nara and Kawagoe) but a crazy amount of photos were collected around the River Azusa alone, haha.

It was freezing cold, though frost from overnight was melting.

We trekked from Kappabashi to Myojin Pond (and back around), whilst gushing on the beauty of everything the whole time.

We basically stayed one whole day in Kamikochi...

And ended the evening with piping hot udon (tenpura and fish broth!) 

at Yoshimoto, Hirayu Onsen (en route on our bus journey back).

The perfect dinner to wrap up a gorgeous day.

6PM is basically pitch black in the Hida mountains in November, and we huddled back to our ryokan, Kazeya, from our 'Totoro' bus stop in the dark.

At this rate, I'd offer anyone company to visit Japan. Mata ne!

I wanted to post before October ended. It looks like a monthly frequency may be what I can keep up with these days.

Recently, there was this:

which made me all kinds of happy. Long walks have been a little part of my life now, and this just gave me extra validation. Also, Datin S and I are aiming for a nice little trek around Kamikochi in a week's time, and I am psychedddd. I hope the weather holds up and is beautiful, to match what should be the beautiful landscape I remember. 

that's why I shine like this

This book has been such a wonderful balm. Absolutely adore it, and it's legitimately made me appreciate red bean. I actually looked up how to make red bean, and I found a couple of dorayaki options to try out from Chateraise. There was one with cream cheese and adzuki (totally bull-dozing through my dairy restrictions) that was soooo delicious.

I don't want to disappoint you, but Toku herself said at the time that she couldn't actually hear the voice of beans. But if you live in the belief that they can be heard, then someday you might be able to hear them. She said that was the only way for us to live, to be like the poets. That's what she said. If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die. The only way to get over barriers, she said, is to live in the spirit of already being over them.

💜

I cried ridiculously at several points. And some parts really stunned me, because it emphasised again this whole... witnessing thing, that is life. When I was small, I used to wonder what the big deal was about witnessing -- because our syahadah, the declaration of belief in Islam, translates literally to, "I bear witness that there is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God." Like why does it have to be a testimony, you know? The first time I got struck by a thought on this, was when we were learning about electrons (haha) in a basic physics module at university, and realising that electrons decided to present as a particle or wave depending on the observer, which is a mind boggling concept by itself. But I was like, wait, one of the most basic units of matter requires a witness and observer to come into practical existence? What. My tiny brain could not make the full connection between things, but just contemplating the possibility of it blew my mind sufficiently.

This story about Sweet Bean Paste, while fully from a secular philosophical perspective, demonstrated how the essence of life is in witnessing the present moment, and that in itself is sufficient. Life does not require some sort of length and successful trajectory to have meaning. It does not need to be lauded or even to be necessarily loved by others. It just needs to be, and to witness.

I began to understand that 

we were born in order to see and listen to the world. 

And that's all this world wants of us. 

It doesn't matter that I was never a teacher 

or a member of the workforce, 

my life had meaning.

I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. 

~ Lymond, Game of Kings