The last two weeks: waking at 5am in a tent, gray and gritty light poking through the stretched nylon. Two hours of yoga and meditation. Watching white laces of mist weave through densely wooded hills in the distance. A witness to this immense, fiery ball as it peeks above the rows of rubber trees from the balcony of the east. Breaking the fast then breaking the silence. Mornings under an unforgiving sun. Digging holes, sawing wood, mixing cement, building bamboo beds, and digging more holes. Caking my feet and legs and hands and face in dirt—for the first time since the last time I played in my backyard, whenever that was. Soreness in my shoulders but freshness in my lungs. Forgetting calendars and clocks, forgetting feeling clean, forgetting what I look like. Lazy afternoons reading Pride and Prejudice, swimming in a deliciously cool river. Long hugs and soft smiles. Evenings for teaching, talking, and tears. Staring up at a crystal bath of stars.
*
Whenever someone opens up or breaks down, I realize how much pain people carry with them everyday. Everyone is fighting a silent battle. It lives in their organs, aches in their bones, breathes through their blood. Like a tall glass of water on a rickety silver tray, sometimes we’re bumped and it spills over the edges.
But that’s the blessing and curse of consciousness. All this wonder and all this fear. Love that ceaselessly teeters on the edge of loss. So much beauty and so much terror.
But maybe, I think, they need each other to exist.
Besides, I’m strongest at all the broken places.
*
The most common advice I get: “don’t be so hard on yourself” or “don’t put so much pressure on yourself” and sometimes “tread lightly”. I’ve been called intense, serious, studious for as long as I can remember. No one has higher expectations for myself than me.
Being fully transparent, I have no clue how to put less pressure on myself. It feels like a term from some new foreign language. I don’t think I’m that hard on myself. I just am. And since we can’t compare brains like lunchtime snacks, I have no clue how different it is for you. I’m blind to my default states. My way of being that is so close up, so effortless, so natural, I don’t even realize it exists. The most permanent patterns are always the hardest to see.
I suppose you’re expecting a solution. I thought I had one. But I deleted it. Because I don’t. For now, I live the questions.
Sometimes merely asking is more important than having an answer.
*
I open this doc, write 200 words, close it again. Standing in line at security, sitting at a coffee shop that kisses the Sumida River, stumbling down the sidewalk. My thoughts branch and weave and twist like roots. Everything to say, nothing to say. I’ve fiddled with this piece so much, I almost made music.
This has been my longest break from writing since I started. Words feel like hieroglyphs. Have I lost my touch? Where did it go? Did I ever have a touch to lose? When I’m tired, the world feels tired also.
Sleep-deprived and mildly manic in some gray faceless airport, I’m listening to ‘Take It Easy’ by the Eagles. The song sounds like sunglasses and shoeless summer days. Bright light that bleaches everything and makes life feel lighter than it is. Grass between my toes and main street ice cream and a boat bumping lazily against a dock.
Glenn Frey’s voice and jazzy guitar echo through my ears:
“Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy”
Leave winter for listening and summer for lightness.
Yours,
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👋 what i’ve been up to:
I finished my second week at the Mindfulness Project, an eco-project in the middle of nowhere Northern Thailand, with 30 new friends from around the world. Mornings began with two hours of yoga and meditation and evenings ended with a sharing circle and talks on psychology, neuroscience, and Buddhism. With lots of manual labor in the middle.
I left Thailand, met up with my Dad in Tokyo for 3 days, then caught a flight back to Canada. Early Saturday morning, I touched down on home soil, exactly 3 months after I left. No trumpets but it’s good to be back.
✍️ quote i’m pondering:
Poet Mary Oliver on creation and the divine:
“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.”
❓ question i’m asking:
What do I love about myself?
📸 photo i took:
Views around Tokyo this week. The cherry blossoms are a special time of year.
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"Being fully transparent, I have no clue how to put less pressure on myself. It feels like a term from some new foreign language. I don’t think I’m that hard on myself. I just am."
We have this in common, Tommy. Years ago, at a retreat with my development community, I discovered that the gifts I could give myself were love, self-compassion, and grace—not in an attempt to be less hard on myself or to eliminate that from my way of being, but to complement it. What I discovered over time is that the harness on myself transformed into something like "candor" with myself because the "harshness" was neutralized when accompanied by grace.
re; "Did I ever have a touch to lose?" I haven't been following your work for very long, but I love the words you find. "Staring up at a crystal bath of stars." and "My thoughts branch and weave and twist like roots." So yes, you have a touch to lose, but you haven't lost it. We don't always have all the answers, as you say. I do think it's really about keeping the search alive (just wrote about that here: https://livingtostayawake.substack.com/p/reviving-the-search-of-your-childhood shameless, or perhaps shameful, plug).
I too am hard on myself, always have been. I don't walk around shaming myself but I have a deep fear of "wasting this life" so I'm always pushing. Just yesterday I was researching what's behind that. Lots of theories but nothing rang like an absolute truth to me. Would love to read your thoughts about it sometime if you reflect further on it.