📆🌴 Reflective Rhythms: A Tropical Tale of Noticing in January
& my debut of some film photography (Letter 196)
Aloha Friday fellow learn-it-all 👋
Greetings from my 7.5-mile run around Waikiki, Hawaii this morn ☀️
Some life updates of four things getting my heart rate up lately:
My new running shoes came in. The Brooks Ghost Max makes me feel like I’m cruising across a fluffy cloud. That led me to running 7.5 miles and accidentally through the set of Hawaii 5-0. I might be an extra in it now :)
I’ve been supporting my roommate with her plot in the community garden and it’s surprisingly rewarding to give plants the water that they need.
I found a surfboard on the side of the road that I cannot wait to ride!
Valentine’s day celebrations came early with little cards to the gals this year. I sculpted honu (turtle in Hawaiian) out of Play-Doh. The air after opening the suctioned lid magically transports me to Friday nights with my babysitter Sarah. I ate a surplus of candy but at least I brought my toothbrush to the party. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Now, let’s dive into letter 196 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!
If you are new here or missed last week's edition, you can catch up on the past letters here. If you are reading this for the first time, I’d love you to sign up below to join the other learn-it-alls:
❓Question to think about
What reflections do I have from the first month of this year?
🤔 Reflecting
Why am I sharing a January reflection nine days into the month?
So much of life is merely showing up no matter the timing, and I believe in the reflection process to support my future self, so here we are. Yes, even on February 9th, 2024 (I’m finally getting the year right).
I want to keep my reflections fun so I’m spicing up the prompts to make them different than usual and a more accurate portrayal of where my energy is these days.
📸 Photo of the Month
I’ve collected kind of a pricey hobby of taking pictures on the reusable film camera my sister gifted me. Of the three roles I developed recently the above is my favorite shot. I took this after my incident (listed at the first moment below). A huge rainstorm came and tainted the original north shore beach day plan but we waited it out and I loved seeing the energy of all these kids running around. No need to let weather or uncontrollable circumstances get us down in life.
🥽 Ten Moments
Surfing straight into the coral to avoid hitting another surfer and getting wana, a long-spined urchin, into my right hand. An ouchie for sure but thankfully healed now.
Watching part of the first half of the NFL final four of the Detroit Lions against the San Fransisco 49ers football game at the bar with my proud family, then being drained, and leaving to go read Harry Potter in a hot bath. Football is not my cup of tea and I remember why now.
Having visitors is fun. Especially when you haven’t played volleyball with that friend in over fifteen years. Thank you for making the trip out Allison. I like bumping balls with you. :)
Hearing someone’s liked songs on shuffle while driving is a lovely way to bond and know them better.
Giving gifts to friends out of the blue like a fat cat calendar is extra delightful. So glad you’re finding it entertaining and useful Marta!
Eating corn at the airport for dinner, having a delayed plane, and without hesitation, pulling out Code Words to play.
People on vacation are so much more likely to smile for no reason and to greet strangers. It’s such a delight. I hung out in a jacuzzi at night with my parents and five Ukrainian men speaking about the war who reminded me of my Polish Dziadzia who passed when I was ten. I felt his spirit for the first time in a while.
Camping is fun and I want to do more of it. I feel more grounded and simpler about my basic needs as a human i.e. socks, hot water for tea, and light from a fire.
Seeing a shooting star overhead and knowing exactly what to wish for while I was floating in hot pond among friends.
Taking four box breaths before I did something scary like jumping off a 50-foot cliff.
🎞️ Nine Film Photos that I am obsessed with
🔍 Eleven words I looked up:
Brouhaha: a noisy and overexcited reaction or response to something
Obsequious: excessively eager and attentive to please or to obey instructions; fawning
Animosity: strong hostility
Irreverence: a lack of respect for people or things that are generally taken seriously
Imua: in Hawaiian, to move forward
Melody: a succession of pitches in rhythm
Jejune: lacking interest or significance
Deluge: inundate with a great quantity of something.
Little minx: an impudent, cunning, or boldly flirtatious girl or young woman
Conniption: a fit of rage, hysteria, or alarm
Abenteuerlich: (in German) adventurous, odd, strange, risky
🕳️🐇Five Google search rabbit holes:
Neon greenish urine is not alarming, and most likely means you have taken in too much vitamin B for your body to digest
It’s okay in most cases to use retinol on your facial skin if you use sun coverage and sunscreen. I think.
An abundance mindset can be applied to living daily with practices of the generosity of time, regular celebration, gratitude, possibilities, and focusing on what’s in your locus of control.
The Proust Questionnaire has some challenging questions that I still don’t know how to answer
Three notable voyages of remarkable sailors were:
(1) the Nova-Scotian-born Joshua Slocum was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world in 1898 (and never learned how to swim).
(2) Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl led the Kon-Tiki voyage in 1947 from South America to the Polynesian islands.
(3) In 1980, Nainoa Thompson became the first Hawaiian and the first Polynesian to practice the art of wayfinding, or non-instrument navigation, on long-distance ocean voyages since voyaging ended in Polynesia around the 14th century.
❓ Six Questions I’ve been pondering:
Why don’t adults play more?
What is within my kuleana (Hawaiian for responsibility) in this lifetime for this world?
How come I don’t intentionally get lost like I used to?
Since life is impermanent, what changes are within my control that I’m excited about making? What do I want to keep the same?
What is my wish for how to celebrate my 28th birthday?
Who haven’t I expressed gratitude to in a while?
🖊️Writing
This past month I shared the below four letters:
A collection of 100 things I experienced in 2023
Eight poems on my adventures on the Big Island of Hawaii
My letter to 2023 with stories of significant moments that embodied courage, connection, and peace
A Letter to My Improved Self to show my journey to self-acceptance
📜🖋 Poetry Corner
🛌 Journaling in My Bed
Journaling in my blue bed, Noticing inside my head, Remembering thoughts unsaid. With no one to offend My emotions wide spread Along marvelous soft threads– I highly recommend, Especially to tie up any loose ends. Caterpillar in her cocoon, Staring alone at the moon, Chaos joins in soon, Life's strife, an endless tune. Journaling in my blue bed, where serenity is bred.
Poem analysis: Each line has about seven syllables, with near rhymes every two lines. Repetition of the main theme at the beginning and end to reinforce.
📖Reading
I’ve been studying the craft of writing letters and what makes them effective which led to me buying Letters of Note by Shaun Usher. (S/o to
and James Clear for opening my eyes to this book and the nudge to start reading).Hunter S. Thompson enjoyed letter writing like me even so at age 67 he wrote one to his wife before taking his life. This letter with life advice to Hume Logan written at age 20 from New York City on April 22, 1958, is one that I deeply resonated with.
These are six quotes that I sat with daily on goals, leadership, experiences, procrastination and victim mentality:
Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.
And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. Is is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives.
Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors— but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires— including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to be something; he has no matter.
But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. Ther is more to it than that— no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life.
🎧Listening
Maggie Rogers dropped the first song of her new album and I absolutely love it.
Don’t Forget Me by Maggie Rogers:
And maybe I'm dead wrong
Maybe I was bitter from the winter all along
Maybe there's a stranger standing, holding out for love
Just waiting on the next street
Just for me
Oh, just for meSo close the door and change the channel
Give me something I can handle
A good lover, someone that's nice to me
Take my money, wreck my Sundays
Love me 'til your next somebody
Oh, but promise me that when it's time to leave
Oh, won't you promise me that when it's time to leave
Don't forget me
Don't forget me
🎬 Watching
This music video is so wholesome. Especially the flipping of chocolate chip pancakes. And swimming in the lake. The ocean is great but sometimes I miss lake swimming.
Sidenote: Maggie is inspiring me to want to donate and chop all my hair off.
🌟Quote to inspire
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” - Bertrand Russell
🙏Shoutouts
I peppered these throughout already :)
I appreciate you reading this!
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Keep on learning 😁
Mahalo 🌺
Jen
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