Sometimes, there is a moment when I can reach a part of myself where only emotions exist. I remember that it used to echo through my whole body. I was that emotion itself. I have been working to reach that part more easily and quickly.

I used to like playing slow and sad songs on the piano. When I try to dig into myself, the feeling I liked to experience somehow comes back. I realize how much I’ve forgotten.

       

The other day,  a sparrow landed on my car’s windshield when we stopped at a red light. I was excited since it was something that  is unlikely to happened and had happened for the first time. The sparrow looked like it was having fun exploring. I want to talk with  other living creatures. 

Cats understand people’s words. I am convinced of this through my experience. I live with a female cat. Every night, she comes to my bed to warm herself. Whenever I do my extra work on my bed before sleeping, she taps me to let me know she wants to go to sleep. She doesn’t stop, so I tell her, “I have extra work to do. I’ll finish soon, so can you wait?” Then she stops tapping me. There are many moments like this. The problem is I am not good enough at understanding her meowing. I try to learn her language.  

I’ve been listening to a woman’s biography. Despite her painful story, she somehow warms my heart. She must have been a very strong woman.

 I went potato digging. When I stood in the field and felt the afternoon air, I remembered spending a lot of time outside as a child. The air was cold, and there was the smells of dried leaves. The soil was dry because it hasn’t rained for a while. It smelled a bit dusty but I could also feel some humidity in the air. It was nostalgic feeling.

What I want is so simple. I want to know the world through my own senses. 

There are a lot of sad stories in this world. Whenever I hear stories about the hopes of bright young girls being taken away, I feel so sad. 

I have always liked reading women’s biographies. I’ve always been drawn to the stories about women. 

The winter sky is exceptionally beautiful since the air is clear. The crescent moon looks beautiful as it shines.

 

Fighting is exhausting. But if the fighting eventually brings understanding, it makes sense to me. I didn’t expected to have a big argument today. Life is unexpected. I feel depleted, but I guess we’ve settled things.

 Winter has arrived! It’s the best season for hot tea. Hot tea gives me happiness so easily. Drinking hot tea in the cold weather is the best. For this reason, I like thermos bottles. It’s my hobby to look for the bottles.

I met a lady who told me about an empty rack in the bike parking area which was filled with bikes. It was busy parking lot,

so if I hesitated even a moment, someone could take the spot. I don’t know why she was kind to me. It might have been a small favor for her, but its impact was bigger for me. Kindness from strangers sometimes saves my day.

I was using my past feelings as a marker to evaluate my emotions, but these days I need to know how I feel at this age. I am growing older and gaining more experiences, which must have made me different from the past. I’m still myself at the core, but must not be the same. I want to know well how I feel now.

Leaves are turning such beautiful colors. Why do they become so colorful and attractive? Do they try to attract something? Or are we built-in tendency to find them attractive? Which is it? Or maybe neither?

 

I heard a song about a man who supposedly loves a woman passionately in the dollar shop. It was the music playing in the store. He sang that he could do anything for her. But his voice was so cold and flat. He didn’t sound interested in her at all. Perhaps he doesn’t love anyone like that. He even sounded as if he despised something. It was chilling. I wouldn’t trust a man whose voice sounded like that, even if he was saying something nice. I have no idea who the man is at all. This is just my impression from listening to the song.  

I started eating beans again, which I  had once given up. The longer I go without eating beans, the more distant they seem. The other day, I ate beans. I felt very good. I decided not to give up something I like and that is good for me just because kids don’t eat them.

 

It was such a beautiful day. There were a lot of fallen leaves on the roads. I couldn’t stop feeling excited.I completely understood how the boy who was playing in the leaves near me was feeling. When you become an adult, fallen leaves on the roads become something that needs to be cleaned up. I like clean roads, but it is sad if they are too clean. There is nothing joyful about them.

When I was watching YouTube videos in which female comedians were cooking chicken, I remembered a feeling. I felt as if I were tasting it and I knew it was good. I wanted some.

I was watching the laundry net was fluttering the wind. I was watching evening glow. I just couldn’t stop feeling the moment was beautiful.

It used to be so easy, almost automatic to feel something. The emotion came from my whole body, and it was inexplicable. This is myself. This is myself, but how? How could I forget about myself, even though it was still within me? 

I learned that it is more fragile than what I had thought.

I like the balcony because I can feel the outside without leaving the house

 Several days ago, I happened to take a two-hour nap in the afternoon. When I woke up, I felt like I needed to restart my unfinished sculpture. I did.

I went out to do my chores.I smelled the beginning of winter and heard dried leaves rolling in the wind.

 

I am making some effort to get my energy back because I have felt drained for such a long time. I’m not sure if this effort has made any difference, but today I feel as energetic as I did when I was younger, especially my brain. I feel it lit up and warmed. Energy is required to do everything. This past month, my stomach has been demanding that I eat more. Now, I see the reason. I was taking in source of energy. Again, my mother was right. She always told me to eat more and said I couldn’t accomplish anything without eating food. Food had life before I ate. My life is supported by the other lives. 

Yesterday morning, I found out that my bicycle tires had worn out. They could have break at any time, so I decided to change them. I had to wait for one hour while my bicycle tires were being changed, so I took a walk around the bicycle shop. There was a place packed with tall buildings that seemed to be residential buildings. The two-story daycare center is surrounded by ginant buildings and surviving strongly. If I lived here, I could harm my health. I learned what I wanted through what I don’t like.

My favorite household chore is taking in laundry because I like to watch the evening sky and smell the air. It is the most favorite hour of the day.

A Cranky Morning

The mint I’m growing has bloomed, and now bees come to visit. Bees find flowers and come to collect nectar, even in a place like a balcony of an apartment in the city. How did they know there are flowers blooming here? I am very happy to know them still around us. I’m glad that something I do for myself ends up making food for the bees. 

I was irritated this morning. I felt that it was difficult to concentrate or have fun. I didn’t know what to do on a morning in this mood, so I went walking, hoping for something to change. It’s a path I’ve taken many times, yet I come across something new and interesting, which refreshes me and recharges my energy. I remembered what my mother said to me  when I was crying after a breakup. She said Swimmy healed his sadness by exploring different places. I thought there was some truth in it. 

It’s almost time to make dinner, but today, I just want to be like I was as child, ignoring family duties and focusing entirely on myself.

But I made a decent dinner eventually. Somehow, I didn’t feel drained, empty, or stifled.

 

Go slowly to go fast

 

When I look back on my childhood, I was a slow person. Slow like a sloth. My mother always rushed me, but I barely listened to her.  I was totally dependent on my mother and never imagined I had to be capable of doing many things to become independent in the future. I never had a problem with the slowness until I had my children. Childbearing has no break. Tasks are flooding in constantly. My slowness was a huge disadvantage.

　On the other day, I went for a walk. I tried walking slowly, at the pace my curiosity took in the world. It’s been a while since I walked this way. I felt like I was absorbing nutrients and coming back to life, making connections with the world. I want to live in the wild. I suppose all living things naturally have the ability to hear the voice of the world to some extent. We human have been losing it.

　I found moving slowly was the fastest to make connections with the world for me. I might be a real sloth or maybe a plant? I want to be a hunter when I needed though. Could I be a hunter? I don’t know yet. I hope I will be.