All shall be well but I’m overwhelmed with love and loss. Mom’s with my ghostly siblings and ancestors. Jenny’s farm soothes. Typhoons traumatise. Kittens console.
This is the 19th time I have summarised my year in exactly 25 words. Here are all the 25 Word entries I’ve written since 2001:
2018
A contented year at home with Tod. Got fat, got happy. Played with friends in the beauty of nature. Earned enough, laughed enough. Pleasingly present.
2017
Be careful what you wish for. First Italy, Vietnam, and China with Rob then triangulations among Kamogawa, Bangalore, and Ephrata. Always home and always homeless.
2016
Half century joys: circus successes; drawing again; driver’s license; warm neighbors; loving husband. Sorrows: multiverse branched and Zoupi vanished; my heart broke; mould ruined everything.
2015
A new era began with Japanese eijuuken and freedom to do anything! We quit Tokyo for rural Chiba. Now we have time, space, and ease.
2014
Our 25th anniversary. Eyes opened in Ireland and India to a new life together. More adventures, independence, inventiveness, alliances. Yes, yes! The ayes have it.
2013
Running away to the circus confused me. Spent ten months wondering “What next?” Tried resting, contests, midwifery – not my things. Travel, teaching, performance? Yes. Circus.
2012
Hooping took me up to Tohoku, down to Niijima, and around the world on tour. Ukulele, yoga, improv, songwriting, skating, visiting, & fundraising filled the gaps.
2011
Mother Earth trembled and futures fell apart. Uncertainty ruled us for months but in the end I’m still in Japan, married, hooping, and feeling happy.
2010
Lived my hoop dreams, wheeee! Connected, created, collaborated, choreographed, costumed, capered, camped, coordinated, but then crashed hard. Ouch. Healed and found my truth. Full circle.
2009
Rose petals in blue sky and the scent of muddy elephants conducted me to presence. An intense upwelling of joy revealed the universe inside me.
2008
I made dresses, meals, 100 necklaces, friends. Grew food. Witnessed a birth! I am greying, wrinkling and fading, but I started hooping, so who cares?
2007
Food ruled 2007: went almost vegan, developed recipes, and lost 10 kilos. Also sewed Morsbags, made political statements with robots, and explored Tokyo real estate.
2006
Forty was a pleasure/pain year – a roiling emotional sea. Heartbreaking anguish half drowned me but also un-dammed a flood of patterns, photography and creativity.
2005
This year, a lesson in
How to bear pain and loss.
Travel doesn’t cure heartache;
Friends ease the agony.
Healing and peace flow like water.
2004
Did more, finished less.
Strengthened friendships and traveled.
Constructed 18 videos, knitted scarves,
Shared my pencils and my love.
Still seeking realisation of my principles.
2003
Hello Tokyo finally done
Neon Chopstix now begun.
‘Twas mostly work but also fun.
Hosted friends from far away.
Another visa for three years’ stay.
2002
Celebrating four years in Japan, I exercised my right brain and my poetic voice. I filmed then procrastinated. I waited for the axe to fall.
2001
Spent seven weeks on holiday in Maui, China, mainland US. Wrote lots, taught many, earned little. Saw the inside of my head. Didn’t do enough.
