Teapot, I love you

Since an old family heirloom teapot entered our home after Christmas life has been sweeter. Every morning the ritual of boiling, warming, brewing, steeping and all that melodious chinking of china, rising of steam and hallowed history and culture mean I startup day feeling great. Either Kei makes me tea (previously unheard of). Or I make a pot and take him a cup in bed on my way out of the house. Something about the teapot makes it better. Even if we aren't using the best tea, the loose leaf English breakfast that came with silver spoon and just opt for good quality bags brought back from Blighty, it tastes and feels so good. This is an homage to my teapot.

Plotting, planning and enjoying the therapeutic effects of making a scrap book. And visions.

Entering 2012 - Underwhelmed

Fuck me, I only seem to come over here to have a little moan, but let's get it out there.

I have entered 2012 with a certain degree of ambivalence.

I haven't quite latched on to what this year is for me.

Last year was insane. Not in a raging banshee kind of insane but the kind of insane that you realise when you realise your best friend is a nutcase and you've known her for 20 years and she's been slowly whittling away at you. Of course the signs of insanity were there, but they were never quite enough for you to truly be able to say. That's insanity.

(For the record all my friends are sane. Kind of)

2011 ended brilliantly. I loved it.

Of course like most people in Japan, there's before. And after.

Before I had goals, was being coached, was ready to make big changes and start a business and so all these things.

Then came March 11th.

Everything changed.

Or it didn't.

But it did.

Everything changed.

My whole perspective, body, mind, nervous system, human landscape, geographical landscape changed in and instant and then settled into a whole new landscape.

It was weird.

But not unpleasant.

Because I just had to let it happen to me.

The after March 11th part of last year happened to me.

I watched it all happen to me.

People left, not to return.

They left Japan.

Left their partners.

Left their lives.

Their past.

Made the decisions they had been stalling over.

Thinking about.

And I watched and let it all happen to them.

And I watched people lose everything and leave everything.

And it was fascinating and heartbreaking and life changing and a spectacle.

And then I stayed here and my life got wings and took off as we in Tokyo saw the gaps that needed filling and the space that needed to remain.

We filled the cracks the space, nursed our open wounds, felt the sensations our bodies were feeling as they shook and shook and shook and our visceral primal selves were shaken alive. It was really fuckin frightening being in the aftershocks.

And in filling these gaps that were left.

And surveying the new landscape.

I found reserves of goodness and energy and strength and courage and balls and femininity and vulnerability and magic and possibility that I had long forgotten and had long been wokring hard on recovering and celebrating again.

I closed the year with a carefully chosen few parties, carefully chosen drinks and then a last minute trip to the UK for just a few days, to spend Christmas with my family.

And that's where the optimism and the engagement with life stalled.

Returning and jet-lagged heading to the in-laws where fatigue, lag, shame and being the outsider made for a testing few days. Being left in bed. Feeling left out. Old wounds open wide. Japanese language ineptitude. As a communicator few things are more frustrating and isolating that being unable to answer the simplest of questions. Or to converse freely. Or to find the reserves of energy and humility and face to overcome language and communicate in other ways. it was a testing time.

In the back of my mind and the very front working out and through my family. The joy and awkwardness. My one wish to be in a room celebrating joyfully together, smiling, accepting. No superiority.

No competition.

Just forward commitment to being joyful together for just a few days.

For every time we are together.

To release control.

And I felt so sad and so beat and so broken that I had no time to really digest the enormity of last year.

It was huge.

I accomplished more than I imagined.

took myself to new levels.

Entered difficult and challenging relationships with absolute resolute intention to make good and make even.

I stood and watched a marriage implode explode and end agonisingly.

I honed my leadership in a dignified and authentic way, always looking forward and focusing on growth.

I watched my partner leave his job, put himself in a vulnerable position, a position that means he is in a position that I wanted. And supported and encouraged and congratulated his courage. And expressed my pride.

Yet here I am today, anxious.

With a pit in my stomach.

There is room for this feeling, but what is its message?

How can I craft my year?

What's next?

The words I chose, that resonated so clearly before the holiday now just sit on the page.

Elegant change

Limitless energy (I am incredibly tired)

But some things cling to my back.

My brother.

England.

My future.

My heart.

Something's big in there and I don't know what it is.

Some say I am lying to myself and I do know what it is.

Do I?

Do I want to go to England?

Do I want to start a business with my husband?

Do I want to start my own business?

Is it to do with tea?

Is it about communication?

But deep down it starts with trust.

And this word frightens me.

Trust.

And this word, as I type it, brings a tear to my eye and causes me to draw a sharp breath.

And this is why.

I know.

That this word.

Is my word.

For 2012.

Trust.

I want to live

Or rather I don't want to die.

I just got this overwhelming feeling that I don't want to die.

That I want to go on and on and there is so much that I want to do.

So I want to live.

And make my wishes and wants come true.

It's still bubbling inside me now.

An overwhelming feeling of joy and fear and tears.

I just don't want to die.

I want to live and continue doing great things.

I feel like I haven't yet fulfilled my life's purpose and I fell that I am getting closer to finding what it is.

This quickening has a message for me.

In the meantime, I keep moving forward with my life, loving it and appreciating everything in it.

Hearing beautiful music that fair breaks me open and beams love out.

Seeing amazing performances that make me laugh and cry and want to break open even more.

Knowing that I hold secrets in my shoulders and that I'll know when I am touching myself deeply because the tension in my shoulders will be released along with the secrets.

Moments of deep deep calm. Moments of pure white light joy.

Satisfaction and smiles into my belly.

I want to live.

Long.

Brick Wall

I have a lot to do.

Who doesn't right?

Yes still, I resist, procrastinate and put off.

I get tired, driven by emotion and start to find the simplest of tasks insurmountable.

Meeting minutes.

Writing up meeting minutes.

A simple straightforward task.

A whole day of avoiding.

Making a list of people to invite to a party.

A nightmare, that fills me with dread.

Editing a CV.

Pure pain.

All necessary things.

And the shame of not doing them.

And the longer I leave it the worse it gets.

I'm 40.

It's been like this since I was very very young.

Missed deadlines felt liberating because I could finally just do the work.

Being late with submissions.

Do I not even care?

I thought, as a teenager and young lady struggling to meet assignments and university submissions.

That it would bet better as I got older.

That I would grow out of it.

That I would get better at it.

But things just keep piling and piling up.

And I go into a holding pattern.

So now.

I put one hour on the clock.

Bite the bullet.

And do the work.

One hour for meeting minutes.

Half an hour for list making.

Then some time for CV doctoring.

But it all feels so scary and unmanageable somehow.

So kindness and compassion for myself is essential.

And reward for having completed.

And keep ploughing through and ploughing through.

How does a woman look when she is stepping into her power?

Rubbish