A New Year

At the point that I am writing this, I have officially lived in this tiny Japanese apartment for longer than I've lived in any one place since graduating from high school. Six months from tomorrow, I'll again be moving on and the destination is relatively unknown.
Matthew and I will be traveling on through SE Asia for about four months and then...this ellipsis carries me into a vague future. Signing up for a second year in Japan was a decision that I have been happy with but that doesn't mean it's been without challenges. And, there are six months remaining, six months which I hope to make very rewarding and productive!

This is simply a post to get my blogging ball rolling again, I hope.
A great diversion against the winter cold on days when my legs just don't feel a run in them.

spring has consumed me. in all the good ways that spring does: hiking, cooking with the windows open, reading in bed in my underwear, tending my little balcony garden, plotting adventures, taking pictures, jogging.....it's been lovely to have warmth return to this valley although i know the heat that lingers ahead.

snippets. that which has (been).

reflections on home

there's something magical about the place, or places, we call home. in many ways home, to me, is a state of existence more than a physical place. it is more than my literal birthplace, although this too is of course home. but the very concept of birthplace, a place of creation, reflects my sense of what it means to be home when birthis considered as transformation, growth, and renewal. so, maybe what this means for me is that home is a birthplace and, as i have in many ways experienced many different "births," (both small and large) i have also lived in (temporarily and long-term) many different homes. there are instances is my memory where i became instinctually and viscerally aware that i was home. some of these memories are wrapped up in intuition more than a physical image of where i was. some of these memories, these feelings of being home, came from the pages of a book or the spices in food. i experience moments from time-to-time where i know, with all the certainty i am capable of believing in, that i am where i am supposed to be. this is home. as a firm believer in free will i have to clarify that this sense of being where i am supposed to be is not wrapped up in pre-destiny. for me it is a simple reflection of choice. and through my conscious decision-making i have found another place where i am reborn. this is home.