hello friends

It has been months since I last wrote, wrapping up 2022 with nothing much new to say, and I still feel similarly a third of the way into 2023. I’m not sure if it comes with age, complacency, stagnation… I often find that I have less to say publicly. Every thought feels more repetitive, less profound. Lessons feel more private and internalized. What I want to share into the abyss feels fewer and far between. In truth, I have begun to wonder if I’ve outgrown this space on the internet. What started as a place to feel connected to people in ways I wasn’t finding in my personal life no longer feels as necessary. My Squarespace renewal date is in October, so I will try to keep things alive until then and see how I feel.

In terms of updates, 2023 has already been full of excitement in various ways. We bought a place in March and have spent many hours packing and unpacking, building a home together. While the process was stressful, it has been somewhat of a wondrous experience and one I will cherish. Despite the chaos, I’ve still been spending significant and consistent time skateboarding. What started as a desire to cruise around on pavement has developed into a somewhat obsessive goal around doing tricks and fulfilling childhood dreams. I spend an embarrassing amount of time learning physics of tricks, watching and re-watching tutorials, and figuring out my exact preferences on boards and shoes. The progress has been excruciatingly slow, as to be expected, but the little victories are worthwhile. I feel my balance improving, and the confrontation of fear and trying to do something out of my comfort zone every day, no matter how small, is surprisingly fulfilling. Our new proximity to a variety of parking lots has meant that I’ve been re-designing the electric mini velo bike into a skate-mobile. I’ve tested out some racks and I’m still working through some design challenges between carrying capacity and ergonomics, but I’m excited to iterate on what will functionally be my “car” since we’re living in closer proximity to family, grocery stores, the library, and most of what I need to access on a daily basis.

Learning Japanese, like skateboarding, has provided a sense of satisfaction at incremental improvement. I’ve been learning nearly a year now, and although I am far from even conversationally fluent, it is satisfying to be able to listen to Japanese and have a vague sense of what the conversation about. With our trip to Japan two weeks away, I am eager to put my amateur skills to use, but also nervous that I won’t be able to communicate as much as I would like. Nearly four years into COVID, I’m somewhat anxiously anticipating upcoming international travel. It seems like literally everyone is going to Japan this year, and while I am excited to visit a place I’ve wanted to go since I was a kid, it will be quite the adjustment from the quiet and solitude of WFH suburban life. It’ll be the longest time off work I’ve taken since I quit my job in Boston and VIA Rail’d across Canada in 2018. Hopefully, I will have lots of film photos to share after the trip, although they may resemble the same film photos that every #analogue photographer has taken in Japan this year. Until then.