I think I piss a lot of my very close friends off. I tend to not let them slip through the cracks. When you come to know someone and how wonderful they are, and their talents and aspirations, I think if you really care…. well, “I” try to support them in the ways that I can.

One of the ways I do this, is reminding them of those aspirations… reminding them a lot. Sometimes when I do this, I feel a little bit harsh… because maybe I’ve done it a couple time already and the person is still in the same spot, not moving towards where they said they wanted and it makes me feel bad that I’m acknowledging that “hey, you said you were going to move to new york and try to sing in a musical, why are you working as an office manager in la and living with your boyfriend and being really boring?”

was that mean?

yes…. yes… I know. I don’t actually say these things. But, in other ways, I do. The reason being is, I wouldn’t expect anything less from them towards me.

I think, the number one struggle any person who has the drive and the will, the inspiration and ability to follow their dreams… the number one complaint is that they don’t have enough support or don’t feel like they have enough support. They want that community to bounce ideas off of, parents who say “do it” and friends that show up and partners/spouses who give them the space and understanding to dedicate the time to their craft.

It’s all excuses isn’t it? Maybe not. I think a lot of why I can still do what I do is because I’ve had the support. No one is throwing me money or opportunities… yet, they replenish because I keep working and I don’t center myself around “haters” or not even as far as haters, but people who are not at the least, ambitious or happy.

If you aren’t doing what you want… then you are really not listening yourself. And when I notice that a friend isn’t listening to themselves… I make sure they at least hear my big mouth.

Fishies in the sea!!!! What does it mean? So many things… but, don’t you find it interesting… that when your heart is set on someone and you just can’t lose your grip, you tell yourself that this person is “SPECIAL” (please say special out loud, and draw it out into a lilting whisper…1…2…3….) SPECIALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

And then when things go sour you have to tell yourself… this person is not SPECIALLLLLLLL, that there are a billion people just like them in the world … actually, there are a trillion people better in the world and you are bound to meet one of those better and really special people next.

In these situations… I just let myself feel it all and try not to doubt it. Love is still love when you love… not only when someone loves you back.

After waking up before the sun for the last month and finally feeling good enough to be out… I finally feel like it’s my summer after a very long 6 months of not being able to move around… I finally feel good. I got a few good weeks of sun and now it’s starting to get cold. I know when Winter is peaking its head in when the sun starts sleeping in the ocean. It’s my favorite time of year to watch it go away.

The other day I was so exhausted I brought all my gear and I ended up falling asleep. I woke up fighting between the bite in the air and the extreme relaxation. I got up and started seeing couples walk onto the beach to watch the waves. I forget how watching the sunset sometimes when you are by yourself feels like eating out at a restaurant on Valentines Day.

Luckily for me, they started leaving half hour before it actually went down. I put my stuff in my car and walked out and it was a super low tide where the wet sand stretched so far it felt like walking on water or something less like a religious miracle story. However, breathtaking and I started to look back at the beach and saw no one for miles and miles and I started to feel like in some sort of trippy dream… probably still lucid from my conk-out session.

I really hate admitting this, but I felt a bit lonely. Or whatever the feeling is when you get really frustrated seeing something and feeling something and wanting someone there to feel it with you. I got a bit disappointed in myself as well because I used to be able to easily be under the sky and feel connected to it like I was housed under a giant, loving, sistine ceiling. And now, it’s not as easy.

It’s very comparable to what I think, an artist always strives for…. that connection. Or maybe it’s just a very human thing that we don’t always talk about because we want to be strong. When you are someone who finds beauty in many things… you can imagine how many opportunities there are to stop, look around and see that people aren’t seeing what you are seeing. You become a pointer…. a sign-holder.

At least I know where I am.

If you’ve read the internet, then you have heard about occupytogether.org which started I guess on Wall St., NYC. My instant reaction to this “movement” was curiosity because I have been a strong proponent of educating myself about world economics and trying very hard to understand why things are the way they are and understand the intricate controlling factors of our government and why people are generally living in fear or in ignorance simply about where their food comes from, where their gas comes from, who makes their clothes and why there are people in the USA that can’t eat or live under a roof while there are people who own chains of islands.

My dad is worried that I will occupy. I’ve actually had several emails asking me to join this movement. I think it’s a great thing for people to voice their opinions… from what I get out of it, is that the basic tenet of this movement is to instill true democracy.

Dear dad, I will not be occupying at this point in time although I don’t necessarily discourage it. My reasoning is the people with the money are laughing because we aren’t making our point by making ourselves heard in the venues that the people in control are listening. These places where they listen are places that the WE set up in the first place are not being used….

When is the last time you went to a town hall meeting? When is the last time you went to your city meeting, county, state. They have them every month, sometimes more. I should say that if you care about getting your voice heard, start by going to these meetings and making your voices heard there. I hope this eventually becomes a major point in the movement.

I would also suggest you read ‘Common Sense’ by Thomas Paine and you’ll realize that he truly is a founding “father” and like a father with all his hopes and dreams and idealism and even just a basic desire to provide a just world for their kid, he knew this could happen. He knew that the banking system would control the government. He also knew, as long as people kept showing up to their very local town hall meetings… they gov’t would not get as big, as complicated and hard to understand…

Think global, act very local.

I was sitting on a bench eating my lunch and a man walks by and the man sitting on the bench says to me “Do you get the gay thing? I don’t get it”. To that I responded…. what’s there to get? Why do you need to get it? He said he didn’t like how gay people have parades and flags and bumper stickers and that he doesn’t need to know when a person is gay. Keep it to yourself. I explained to him that it’s just identity…. just like anything a person wants to connect with other people through like their religion, their nationality, their shared interests. Some things are boasted by media outlets and our government more than others to distract us from what they are doing to keep us in a controlled environment.

The fact is… while we spend so much time on the daily, celebrating our identities and putting our efforts into connecting, a lot is going over our heads that affects the quality of life of billions of people who are not as represented. Whether you are gay, christian, multi ethnic… however you identify yourself, you probably care about if you have a place to sleep tonight, food to eat in the morning, gas in your tank, a job to get to that pays you so you can pay your bills. This is the most important issue in society…. our economy. Who pays you, how do you get your money, and why aren’t you getting as much as that guy over there. You shouldn’t be embarrassed to ask these questions and have an open dialogue about it. It’s more taboo to talk about money than your moral opinions.

My parents both worked when I was growing up, and so did their parents. I am naturally going to identify closely with people who grew up the same. It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, but there is a difference and a perspective I carry from watching people work for survival and to provide, rather than having either the luxury to pursue “dreams” or taking the risk to do so while compromising being able to provide and survive.

Every once and awhile I get glimpses into what life could be like had I continued towards a path that I’ve witnessed and broken out of…. and there are certain comforts that are “nice” but, let’s see… how can I explain this….?
There is a certain leveling in life…. and no matter how much money you make, I believe that there is a sense of equilibrium…no matter what, you will have a void that needs to be filled. If I was working a traditional job just for the money I would fill this void with $200 jeans and complain about how I never have time to do what I really want to do. After 10 years, I’ll already be sucked into a quality of life that can only be afforded by clocking in day after day… and the jeans don’t fill the void anymore…. the void just gets deeper and need to find other quick patches. It’s 15 years later, I’m older… I want to look like myself when I got into this prison… give me those botox injections! boob job!
ok… I can only be this harsh because this is not really me, I’m describing.

A lot of my risk taking and my aspirations are fueled by not so much a fear of the above scenario…. but, more like a tribute to people who for whatever reason, just can’t do what they want. As much as your parents or the people who cared for you and raised you worry about your survival, I’m pretty certain that they didn’t intend on you enslaving yourself. I, myself have to tell myself that many times. My mother will still occasionally suggest “taking some real estate courses”.

For those who are struggling to break free or break through or take their own path… and people come down on them, remember that they are already down their own road and will do anything to make you follow them. This is a system of following each other into a void. Don’t buy it.

Not certain what I’m going to write tonight yet. Let me think about recently… my family was visiting. I miss that safe feeling you can only get when a person who changed your diapers is within arms reach. Don’t think they won’t use the very same thing to get you to do whatever they want you to. “I changed your diapers… don’t cross me”.

I noticed the past week and a half, I’ve been having a lot of miscommunication caused by the written word. I’ve come to truly realize that when you are close enough with someone where they know your tone of voice even when you are writing to them, not to take that for granted. There are so many ways to interpret words when you don’t know where they are coming from.

One of my best friends in high school was a Korean American girl named Jen Thompson. We could finish each others sentences and shuffle topics w/o any bit of latency or transition between and not be confused in the least. My sister and I can also do this at times also but I always shrugged it off as a sibling thing. I thought this was so normal of intimacy that when I applied this to future romantic relationships w/men…. I was strongly mistaken and found it more laborious to COMMUNICATE.

So, what? I have to speak in complete sentences and finish all my thoughts and answer all my own questions and treat thinking aloud as committed statements? And when I speak a generalization, it will be taken as a definite stance on one side of a coin? And I can’t make up my own words without sounding really immature? And when I write an email, or a fb status, tweet, blog, text etc. I have to monitor and contemplate every angle of how my words can be taken?

No-thank-you. Will you please accept that I’m a good person and learn my language?

I will say, I do try to make an effort to explain what I mean when someone asks…. but, at a certain point, I try not explain who I am. In so many ways, it’s depressing to do so… and insulting. I can give you my time for you to figure me out enough… but, please don’t jump to conclusions.

I guess this post has ended up being about how thankful I am to anyone who considers me…. in all my wordplay mania, random babble… who find me quirky, observant and enthralled rather than judgmental, black and white, and demanding. thank you thank you… for letting me fly my freak flag and embracing my crazy. And remind you that the ones that mean the most, that you want to keep close are those who don’t need explanation, they already know who you are and where you are coming from… in the heart of it.

Have you ever meditated? I don’t practice meditation w/the intention of meditating unless I’m trying to heal myself from something painful or draw away pain from my brain, but I do many many things and have always done many things that force me to focus my energy on something that comes as 2nd or 3rd nature, where I go into a meditative state. It’s very important to my own well-being to do so and I think I have done it in natural necessity in my life thus far… which has kept me from abusing drugs, anti-depressives, etc. It’s hard enough for any person in this age to avoid substance abuse, think about the poor, struggling artist.

It can be a tricky thing, if you don’t understand yourself and how you create stillness. You can be sitting on your ass all day with a racing mind. It’s not about rest, it’s about clearing out all the junk in your head.

I was physically working out today and I realized that I could not concentrate or get the rush I feel at a certain point because I had all this negative, angry, aggressive, dark energy that was lying dormant and coming out. I felt like I couldn’t breathe but wanted to go faster and faster and harder until I internally combusted and afterwards, I felt really sick… I could feel a horrible expression on my face.

I’m not un-busy. I’m not bored. I just have stints where I feel overwhelmed and unmotivated and tell myself that I’m just relaxing and taking a break… but, when you become an adult, you can never relax the way you did when you were a kid. You’re never really “doing nothing” so, that space you’re reserving can fill up with ANYTHING…

I need to remember that even when my body is resting, to not let my brain get too slack.

I never used to like stationary bikes at the gym. I liked that puma rider thing where you’d swing your legs like tony little or whatever his name is or the elliptical. I think mostly because having a bike to ride for transportation made it weird in my brain. But w/the nature of my most recent injuries 5 months back, it was nearly my only option for not making my injuries worse. It’s been really amazing as far as healing me up and reducing my pain. I started at 52 rpms… I’m not kidding. I am currently at 107 rpms and my goal is 150 rpms and being able to sing w/o having to catch my breath. I think I can do it.

Reina Boone- Chances Are by reinaboone

Some people only want to hear “you’re so cool, I want to be just like YOU!” These people are easy to manipulate and appear so weak. Be strong de-mystifiers.

Sometimes you don’t want to say “I love you”, you want to say other things. Not necessarily nice things, but truthful things but, you know that person will not be able to take it.

You know when you first meet someone and you know you will know this person the rest of your life. They are “your people” they “get it” you’re so cool with them.

And then there are others who you just are so no interested in them at all that you don’t care if they are passing through.

Then there are others who for one reason or other, they seem to be around a lot and yet, you never get deep with them, you don’t feel comfortable being yourself, giving your full opinion, being contrary or being vulnerable around them. Oh acquaintances—-!

Usually with me, you go right into the acquaintance box when you start talking shit about other people. You know, the one that makes it a sport to comment on someone’s clothing or their physical features when they walk by? Or the one that purposely doesn’t pick up calls from their other “friend” just to make them squirm? I’m sure everyone has met one of these ones…. right? ahem… mean girls? The ones that never left high school. Or if they can’t live life in context… they can only live by a guidebook aka… very religious, controlled by specific ideology or very rule driven.

It’s not that “I can’t” cut people out, I can and I have, but on some level, I can find something good in every person and I realized, I didn’t have to shut a person completely out of my life, just because we don’t share the same beliefs on certain things. You don’t have to burn all those creaky bridges. You can learn to tread light.

So, what happens when an acquaintance doesn’t think they are an acquaintance and bases their opinions of you on the very little information you’ve given them about you? Whose fault is it in the end? Do you decide to explain yourself and who you are to a person you’ve never wanted to do so with in the first place just so you can prove that you’re not who they think you are?

These sort of acquaintances are incredibly challenging for me because I’m the sort of person who can dish it out and take it, so I dish it out as much as I can. It’s also the nature of my art to… get it all out so it fuels my creativity and keeps my brain healthy. I don’t want to tread lightly! I know myself too well, I am passionate about what I know and want and don’t like sucking it down for someone else’s benefit. Why are they so demanding of my time? Why can’t they be the ones keeping up the facade for my benefit so I can be me and they can pull back on who they are? huh?

I just read that an acquaintance is “slightly a friend”. What a perfect way of putting it, actually. It’s so gray. There’s so much gray in everything, I like having true friends in my corner and feel very lucky that I do.

I can’t play the game for very long. I’d rather spend the time creating something from my heart, with my family, with friends I know who love me and who have been loyal rather than with someone who hasn’t suffered the loss of a loved one, heartbreak, and has a lot of time to play games and ego-mind-trips. Basically, someone who doesn’t know the value of a real friendship.

There are billions of people on the planet and do we want to meet them all? There is so much responsibility to this exposure. I hope I can continue to be “nice” even if I don’t necessarily want to be friends. I have learned that society is not accommodating to honest people. So, it’s a daily battle between coexisting with those who want the facade and being true to myself.

On the spot, it can be hard for me to cheer someone up. I can be very spontaneous and thoughtful— but I sometimes come off as more overly inundated with thoughts and ideas and not articulated as well as my emotions intend.

Anyway… a good friend of mine was in distress today when she told me that a man she was dating told her on his exit she was an “old, fat, bitch”. I hope she doesn’t mind me writing about it protecting her identity. I was going to write her an email after my ride home while I was thinking about this further, but I thought… maybe a lot of people can relate with.

I, personally have never had a guy tell me this (to my face or knowledge) when we broke up or fought or whatever or try to use it as a verbal weapon so it was hard for me to say anything other than “what an a-hole”. It’s an obvious way for someone to draw up cheap shots because they are desperate to find a fault. For a woman, maybe people think that being called one or all of those aforementioned things are the MOST offensive and hurtful. But is it really true?

How can it be true? This friend is successful in her work and socially engaging. She has beauty and brains. This will be a slight blip in her dating life that I know she will move on from. It’s just a bit heartbreaking for me to hear about my friend getting hurt or upset by someone who thinks they can.

I don’t know about what the equivalent would be for a man, straight or gay etc. Attraction is one thing… people who are at an age where or a place where they don’t want to be alone or depend on only themselves, or who are just vain are very concerned with being attractive. As a younger woman/girl you have less marks of age, physically-emotionally etc. and that virginal, youthful quality I think, it misinterpreted, misused or gives a false sense of security and power in our post-modern societies.

Everyone wants to be the preferred general choice OR for those who want to get married or find the one-true-love soul-mate heart-of-hearts love-of-your-life friend-till-the-end forever and ever etc, they want to be the preferred very specific meant-to-be choice.

When you want to be preferred by everyone… there is a lot to live up to. For some, it’s easier than others. If you just want to be “hot”, then you do what all the magazines instruct you to do say and hope you can survive it and maintain the ever changing rules of the game. Go nuts.

If you want people to treat you how you want and love you for you are effortlessly, then you have to do as it’s said, love yourself for who you are and draw upon the powers that be. Change because you want to. Be healthy. Shake what your mama gave you. Take pride in your work. Learn as much as you can. Be generous. Love and be loved.

Stay strong singles! :)

It’s funny how social media/networking sites have become part of many of our daily routines and yet I still have friends who don’t have accounts and don’t even have internet access at home. Really! I still talk with them, see them and have met up with them. They did not fall off the earth or ever disappear.

Last night I watched Being John Malkovich for the first time since it first came out when I was a kid and it was so much better watching it now, comparing it to the average developed countries online social user-ship and self-obsessed world.

Imagine Zuckerberg as John Cusack’s character.
JM: “I have been to the dark side I have seen a world that no man should see”.
Zuck: “Really, for most people it’s a rather pleasant experience”.
JM: “That portal is mine and it must be sealed forever for the love of God”.
Zuck: “…with all do respect, I discovered that portal. I mean, it’s my livelihood you understand that?”.
JM: “It’s MY HEAD!… It’s MY HEAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!”

The idea that these sites encourage narcissism is the general opinion. I joined myspace possibly much later than most and it was used for my music. I can’t say that any other site has been good for music as myspace once was. I use twitter for news. Facebook is for friends? This is where I hear about the narcissism the most. Facebook and zuck- was a genius in exploiting narcissism.

Recently, I’ve been feeling like the more active user you become on fb, the more recognizable the self-promotion is, to the point where you see how many people do the same or feel the same or think the same as you. You feel less original, special, different… your obsession with your own identity becomes annoying because someone has been where you’ve been, liked what you liked, ate what you ate, seen what you’ve seen. There is less attraction and less to be drawn to. I think this is how fb is going to fall down. Everyone is going to start turning off the feeds and notifications and have to leave facebook in order to like themselves again.

oh hey! I was reminded today how lucky I am to have the family I was born into and the family I have chosen. Both! Remember… it can be both, or it can be one-love.

Oldie but Goodie:
Mason Jennings – Family Tree

As much as I love the concept of “action speaks louder than words”… and showing love through what you do and not what you say, some actions need subtitles! Especially when it comes to communication between men and women!

I have gone to more appointments the past 4 months than probably my whole entire life due to my health.

I can fulfill obligations. I can show show up early, on-time, whatever. I’m willing to do it, but I’m not a creature of regularity and careful planning. I prefer changing things up and spontaneity and at the same time, being practical with my time when it comes to tasks. Get it done, get it done quick, get it done good so I don’t have to think about it any longer. Get it done! Waiting room are very impractical for the person waiting. I don’t like to wait.

Maybe it’s just this time in life, but recently… I’ve had people making appointments to apologize. It’s really weird, or maybe not. I think that when I was a bit younger… I used to fight for my thoughts. I used to fight people for my words. I used to fight to the death of the relationship. I can be really stab-y with my words. It’s a gemini thing.

One day I just stopped. I let them be them and me be me and learned to find a common ground. At a certain point in any relationship… any, meaning friendship or role in a family, when you get to a place that you don’t like, it’s usually because your expectation or hope or standard wasn’t met. Sometimes I have to let go of everything in order to keep a human being around and then it just becomes sort of silly and there’s a big re-evaluation of WHY the hell do I like this person so much that I have to let go of EVERYTHING just to keep them around? And then… the letting go become forgetting and the easing of this person weight on your heart and soul.

I get attached so easy because I love people. When I’m really interested in someone, I really want to know everything. I think, artists are naturally addicts. Obsessive. etcetera.

Anyway… it’s strange because I no longer let go just thinking I’m right, you’re wrong, good-bye. I let go thinking… well, I did my best, I don’t think I did anything wrong, but maybe the timing was not good. And somehow, it has brought me into situations where people want to come back and apologize but, they don’t really do it. They make an appointment.

So, once again… I’m in a waiting room, which I personally… do not enjoy.

The problem I have with these appointments for apologies… are that they prolong the transgression with the good intention. I’ve waited for good actions before… and most of the time, I just sat in that waiting room.

care bears live in the clouds

If you were to enter my room, you’d see that it’s quite tiny and nothing is stuck. I could probably pack it up in 20 minutes or less. I guess my original intention was to make it easy for me to move to the next place after this. Transient. It connotes poor homeless person up to no good. But it just means… on-the-move.

One of my friends suggested today for me to join some online community where I create an avatar for myself and do virtual concerts for other avatar people and I got really depressed hearing this. This may sound exciting for some people, but it doesn’t turn me on. I like performing live actually, in-person and connecting face to face. Maybe this has or will become the way of the world in globalization through technology, but I’m not ready for it. I don’t want to be able to do everything from this room. I want to keep moving.

I just found out that one of my family friends is ailing and I was discussing it with my mother and she mentioned how she viewed her friend as always working and always on the move and it almost seemed like, people feel sorry for others who seem like they just work and work. I am guilty of this also. I have parents and one particular parent that works and works and I can only refer to the life I’ve witnessed. I guess we all wish for the people who seem to have no choice but to work, to have a life full of idle wealth. We don’t want anyone we love to have to struggle or go through pain. I think we tend to forget that the value and happiness quotient of a person’s life it not equated to what other people perceive of it. This goes for all walks of life.

Sometimes a bleeding heart is just a bleeding heart. Pity and sorrows for other people does not help anyone. Enjoy your time w/the ones you enjoy and enjoy your time here on earth because you are here to enjoy it and experience it in whatever ways you know how and live without regret. Keep moving and don’t give up your hope for what you want.

I started to play piano when I was around 4 years old.
I’ve had 3 teachers until I was 16 when I finally stopped taking lessons not including my mother who taught me ‘neko funjatta’ on a tiny casio.

And I don’t know, I never really asked myself if I was good at it. I never got to a level where I cared about being good or felt really confident with it, I didn’t like to practice and I always felt like I was forced to play when I really wanted to play my dad’s guitar that he hid in his bedroom closet.

I’m not good at playing other people’s compositions… I compare the way I make music, to the way I cook or maybe the way I prefer to do everything. I’m horrible at preparing frozen food. It’s either frozen on the inside, burnt on the outside or doesn’t resemble food anymore when I’m finished with it. I gave up on that. I cook from scratch.

I’m also not a very good baker. Because baking is an exact science… the measurements, the temperature, how much of this and that, if you want it taste like a true replication, you have to get it down to the formula. I can’t do music that way either. I have to do it freely and in my own way, or I don’t want to do it… it becomes a task rather than a masterpiece.

Anyway, I guess I never felt really like I loved the piano until I learned to play the guitar. I don’t think I would have been able to pick up guitar and learn from ear if I wasn’t already classically trained on the piano and I wouldn’t have been able to do nearly as much composition without being able to read music and hear notes and beats and most importantly, dynamics. It all comes together and works together. It wasn’t until I started playing guitar, that I could play things in my head on the piano and I learned that it’s just another language and beautiful it can be.

I used to think I had knack in life to attract chatty strangers, not only that, have them reveal their deep dark secrets to me. Well, this is what I used to think… that it was me, that I was drawing them in because I look friendly or I seem like I’m going to listen.

But now I sort of know better. If you’ve ever wondered why strangers tell you their secrets or suddenly say things they would have a hard time telling even a close friend, it’s because it’s easy to tell someone who doesn’t know you, all your secrets. It’s the same way with sharing music. I remember so many times I would tell friends who have known me a very long time to please don’t show up to performances because it would make me very nervous. I’d rather play for strangers then have to explain myself to people who have pre conceived notions. Or I realized that I had adjusted myself and personalized how much of myself and what sides of myself were revealed with certain people and performances are a sort of nexus for all kinds of people to come together and examine you. Scary and overwhelming at times.

I think it’s important when you are growing into the person that you are to surround yourself with people who let you air-out, who don’t hold you to unimportant details and let you grow into whatever you want and if they aren’t these sorts of people, to not take it too hard. Stop explaining yourself. You are who you are and the important people in your life will either understand or catch up with you when the time is right.

If you have time to mull over identity issues, then you are very lucky aren’t you? Some people have real problems… like how to pay for things, how to eat, how to get over illness, where to sleep and how to not get killed.

I have to remind myself of this, anytime I get silly.

I remember this conversation I had w/one of my friends who used to be in a band a generation before mine that didn’t “make it” or that they could have and one thing or another broke up. We discussed music and mtv and somehow it eventually gets to money.

His perspective was that of that the rich guy over there does not have problems and, as much as I am not rich, I believe everyone has problems and things that are painful to them and the question always arises to me, how we measure someone’s pain and more relevant in my mind and life recently is how you measure one’s strength.

I think people in general are pressured to always be strong and suck it up especially if you do have those basic things like food, water and shelter. I guess the more you are known to have, the more pressure you have to be emotionally strong and take care of yourself.

You’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There is no way to measure your pain or your strength. You can’t control everything with money but, you can control how you feel about things and how you express those emotions. And there’s this fear that if you’re not strong, the ones you reach out to will reject you, tell you they can’t help you or mock you for being pitiful finding in the end that you truly are helpless because no one understands.

I don’t know…. I have friends and I have family so, I guess I have felt okay about sharing my struggles with them because I can’t stand to have people who are close to me in life, think that I’m going through it like a breeze. It’s not real.

But there are people in my life who refuse to believe that I have weaknesses and that at times I validly feel helpless in situations because they see only what they want to see and are close to incapable of comparing what they have to what I don’t have. It’s one thing to be viewed as strong and capable… it’s another to be seen as someone who complains when they have so much to be grateful for. I often feel people judging me for complaining rather than telling me to stay strong like they know I am.

I hope I can always be good to people who reach out to me… in any circumstance and remind them of their strengths as I see them.

Last night I went to the annual obon odori that my family goes to every year and or to the Spring hanamatsuri. I never really questioned what Obon is because whether I was in Japan or here for the summer, I always attended one.

When I was a kid, I would be dressed in a kimono which wasn’t that comfortable because my mom would wrap my obi and my hair too tight but,  my favorite part was wearing geta which are the traditional shoes that to me, were like flip-flops which were not popular sandals in Japan and it wasn’t really polite to even wear sandals outside of your house or the beach then so, it was like…. yay, I get to wear flip flops tonight!

Well anyway, Obon to me always meant a family and community gathering at night where there would be Japanese treats, taiko music, and everyone would dance. I would meet with family friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. I kinda knew it was something to do with buddhism because it’s held at a buddhist temple and it had to do with celebrating life. I related it to it being more Japanese rather than religious.

But, I read over the program from the other night and found it interesting that Obon is derived from the Ullambana Sutra and the sanskrit word urabon, which means to suffer as if you were hanging upside down. I guess according to the sutra, the suffering is the suffering one experiences when someone they love passes away and Obon is there to ease your suffering and live the life the deceased can no longer live so that you can transfer the merit of your life towards the people that have passed. At least, that’s what I got out of it with extremely limited study.

I suppose I’ve never thought of suffering as hanging upside down but I like the idea of living your best life and having it transcend and become a testament to all the people who are no longer living. This idea seems quite across-the-board in terms of all that has been said about what should guide you into the light.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Well, summer is in swing and we had our 2-week heat wave and now the weather has been absolutely right-on for the last week. I’m back into a good regime of exercise and eating well and feeling much better as I’ve been going through a slow recovery from a spinal injury that has rendered me in physical pain the last few months.

I am so grateful that that my body still responds well to diet and exercise to heal itself after much abuse. I guess I’m not exactly a western medicine girl so much because even through extreme emotional and physical pain, I’ve learned that if you focus enough energy towards healing before it gets too bad and give yourself time to do so, then you can overcome more than you ever thought was possible.

Consistency is so difficult for me, but when it comes to your body and if you think of it as a machine, it is expected to do so many things consistently for you, you really have to be consistently good to it, do whatever it needs to function properly and figure out the things you can do for it that will help you thrive in all aspects.

My parents were both athletes in their prime and genetically, my body was made to be in constant strenuous motion. Unfortunately, music and art and creative work is not very physical.

If you think of the body as a machine, in order to be really accurate, you have to realize it’s a highly inter-functioning machine where when one thing goes wrong, the rest goes with it, physical, mental and emotional and in our modern world, there are a lot of strings pulling us and wanting our full devotion.

I can say I’m fully devoted to my well-being and hope that I can continue to get stronger and feel better and I hope I always remember to put time towards keeping things in balance.

ラッキョウ　食べたい　！！！！！

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