Wondrous days at 555 – jichinsai to jotoshiki. 1000 days of yoga. Covid, menopause, heart diagnoses. Traded Tilly for Cow. Fritter hops, Beryl roombas, Maura guards.
This is my 22nd annual 25 word summary of the year. It’s a tradition that helps me put an underline on the events of the past twelve months. Here are the others in reverse chronological order:
2021: Go, go, go! Small steps to big plans. 12 tons of tiles, a full-time job, and fresh faces. Kominka burned, making way for different dreams.
2020: Dystopia from our safe haven. Pandemic realigned me with art, teaching, and daily yoga practice via Zoom. Deeply mourned Futatsuyama, Isabella Bird, and Foreground Cat.
2019: All shall be well but I’m overwhelmed with love and loss. Mom’s with my ghostly siblings and ancestors. Jenny’s farm projects. Typhoon traumas. Kitten consolations.
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.
