No 58
Being present is the unique gift of being alive. This newsletter explores small ways to cultivate more presence.
Whenever an experience stands out, leave it alone awhile. Sometime later, replay the scene. Observe the past scene, what do you see? Observe what your body sensed then, and feels now.
I call this processing of a past event an Afterimage.
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The name for this newsletter first came to me in Japanese: 残像, zanzō— meaning, “leftover image”. It’s distinct. I like the sound. When I say it in Japanese, it makes me dizzy.
In hindsight, I wonder why I rejected zanzō so instantly and yielded to its English counterpart. Did I want to avoid a geisha-y, mysticized, romanticized, exoticized Japan? The Wabi-sabi, Ikigai, Kaizen-y Japan? Or did I just default to English, as the mightier language?
Well, in the end, Afterimage wasn’t any mightier a choice. It’s as vague as zanzō, without a subtitle or tag line. It’s a process to build better presence, and through it, a better understanding of me and the world I live in. A new experience of the now.
What, in your opinion, makes a good newsletter title? I’d love to know. Would you read a newsletter called zanzō?
Here's something recent that zanzōed.
Welcome to installment 58.
Let’s begin.
Relief
I had a stressful day. It threw me off. I was mopey and dejected, despite all of the personal development tools I have at my disposal as a coach.
My daughter suggested I go for an evening soak. The hot spring baths along the river are just twenty minutes from home. The sound of water and wind mute my ability to think. It makes me still.
The girl knows her mother. I took the suggestion.
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Driving to the baths, there’s a stretch of route 230 that runs for a kilometer with no lights. It’s an impossible drive, like driving through ink. But that stretch isn’t about driving. It’s a liminal zone between this world and the other one. I’m Chihiro crossing the woods and eventually the tunnel, or Persephone, descending into the otherworld.
I arrive. In the parking lot, greeted by dancing trees and the sound of white water, something in me softens.
Questions make a Love Song
The weight and the heat of the water ground me. The night air in stark contrast with steam rising wake my senses. I’m in aliveness, feeling both hot and cold, and the gap in between.
I feel the onset of a question.
It feels like music inside my body, flowing through me, shapeless. Curiosity, the melody, moves through one channel of my body. I wait for the words to come. A few bars in, lyrics enter— the questions.
There they were, floating right on top of the water:
“What if growing up, instead of hearing I needed to be better than who I was, I’d heard:
What was the best part of your day?
Who or what made you smile today?
What or who makes you want to be a better person?
What does ‘good person’ mean?
When did that last happen?
What got you excited, what lit you up this week?
When’s the last time you noticed yourself in a real moment of sincerity. Can you think of one? What was it about? Who was there?
What if the person who asked these questions just listened, and asked me more questions, when they sensed my excitement crescendo or damper down?
As a fifteen year old, I probably would have gotten embarrassed fumbling for the right answer, not knowing there wasn’t a right one. I would have shrugged and said, “I don’t know,“ the way my daughter does, sometimes.
That would have been okay. And I tell them so. Both my daughter and the fifteen year old in me.
If at fifteen, I had an adult that asked me earnest questions, I would have believed I was interesting, or the person I was becoming was. It would have meant what I thought mattered. That I mattered. And that I didn’t need to abandon myself to become someone else.
Growing up, my parents’ best wishes for me to be successful was code for it’s not enough. I’m not good enough. If they needed me to be more or do more, then I wasn’t really their first choice. They got stuck with me.
Picking up the Pieces
Whenever I go into healing work, I’m very clear about my intentions. I can show up to a therapy session or sit on my meditation cushion and know the outcome of any healing endeavor depends on my intention.
If I arrive with the intention to fix myself, I’m left with a longing for something I can’t have.
So I remind myself healing is not fixing. There is no fixing.
Instead, healing is regaining access to my full power. To retrieve those parts of me I cast aside. I’m here to expose myself to the sensation of my whole power when it’s with me, intact. And help my body remember what my whole self makes possible for me.
I used to wonder what it felt like, to know I’m cherished just for being me. So I’m running a loose experiment. I’m daring myself to be the weirdo I am, bringing back all the parts of myself I cast away.
Do people think I’m weird? Maybe.
Am I still lovable? So far, yes. Maybe even more lovable than I thought.
When I stand in a state of love, it’s actually hard to get rid of people. And those that do fall away, they make room for people that take a liking to the weirdo.
Never be afraid of asking a question. There is no wrong question.
Let go of the fear of silence. Just ask. Start the dance.
A special thanks to Eve who wrote to ask if I’d consider starting a podcast. I’m not quite sure, but I gave myself a little taste of what it might feel like by adding an audio voiceover for this installment.
Do you prefer reading? Listening? Let me know!
Akiko, I would read any newsletter you wrote, regardless of the title! From just a few interactions over WOP zoom meetings, I had a strong intuition about you. The image of this hot spring was fascinating and the questions you pose are some of what I ask my 9 year old. I ask her if she’s learned something about herself today. I am endlessly curious about how we raise daughters in our lives. My mother influenced every action, feeling and decision I made and I’m doing things very differently with my daughter. I let her fail a lot more out of love. Looking forward to your next piece!