REYLIA SLABY

The Fearful Side

reylia — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 07:05:23 +0000

Along the way, I’ve lost the ability to be brave. These sentiments reverberate throughout my work and in my choices in life. I’ve succumbed to diluted projections of the world, of others, and what I imagine they would want, instead of yielding to the wave of what it needs to be.

I tell myself often: Don’t be afraid. You have nothing to lose. And if it leaves you, it fulfills the reason it was there. Art is there to express. You don’t have to fear. Use beauty and pain, take what you feel, how you want to interact with the strangeness of the world, and churn it into art.

This is what I’ve been pondering: Why do I feel that fear within my practice?

After reflection, I’ve come to a bit of a consensus within myself:

I haven’t been making my art.

A lot of what I’ve been trying to make the past few years has felt that way. I had forgotten what good art feels like in the body, to the creator. It can indeed be a turbulent thing, it has the capacity to be joyful and filled with dread. But the artist keeps going because they sense it strongly within their body that this is good.

For several years now, how I create has taken a very different curve. It is not my own work anymore, and I feel that it is because of the influx of images that bombard us daily. As artists, we end up loving too many things, and feeling we want to use everything we see as inspiration. Despite the many advantages of Instagram and its competing visual apps, we are choking on art. A lot of it is all art we love of course, but with the mental tidal wave, we do not seem to have time to wade into singular images.

The feelings of art making recently:
It’s a perpetual intimidation. Being scared of what others will think, if I’m pushing too much, if I’m showing too much, revealing too much, and exploring topics that may be taboo.

This angst comes as a buildup of several things. A few years ago I posted a very mild semi-nude photo of myself. My mother went out of the way to tell me how pornographic it was.

As I had just recently undergone major surgery, my mental state at the moment was not in a place where I could take it in stride.

It sent me into a flurry of pain, frustration, and doubt. It knocked me into a corner of creation where I felt I should only explore the beautiful things on a tame level, things that wouldn’t disrupt, one where people who were more conservative could look at and say, “Oh, what a nice message.”

But now here I am, fresh out of a breakup, still reeling from things that were said at the end, but simultaneously still trying to keep my head up and not cause too many waves. Of course, I want to do the right thing and remain demure and keep the vocalization about the experience at a minimum, but the feelings still remain within my body. They still speak to me. So I know eventually they will become an image.

Now I am trying to understand what it is I want in my art. I want to lose my inhibitions and find complete freedom in my work.

It’s a lot. And I realize I haven’t found a lot of freedom in my work for a long time. I’m trying, I’m trying. But the walls are bolted into the ground. Yet I can feel my body plead with me, begging for them to come down.

Another aspect of it all is running furiously to what you love. This is hard to know the feeling if you have never felt it before. I have, and I remember it. It left a taste in my mouth and now I’m spoiled by it. Nothing tastes as sweet anymore.

One thing that helped me realize my lack of passion in my own work is bachata. Something so seemingly unrelated, so distant from photography, but I absolutely adore it. Despite being new and hopping on the wagon so late. I knew when I tried my hand at the dance several years ago that I adored it, but I didn’t follow my nose. I was timid, and I allowed myself to slip into patterns that brought me little to no joy. I allowed myself to fall into the same rut as the people around me, and I didn’t establish rules for myself, rules that I so desperately needed to follow.

But now I know. Now I know. I can feel it. It echoes inside. It blazes. It’s there.

The permission to express pain. The love to express pain. To unearth it. To scream at it. And then finally allow it to burst into a mist. From there it may not return again. You just keep screaming at it until it’s gone. Scream scream scream.

Sometimes you need to put the pain in your body in a different vessel, and oftentimes it is art.

We must be brave enough to express ourselves, and we can come closer to the art we need to make and close the gap between who we want to be, and who we are. Through that, we can become closer to who we are meant to be. At this moment I’m still looking. It’s hard to have a body, with all these chemicals raging within us. But there are some things that can calm those waters. I like to think that art is one of them. I just need to play the trust game a bit better and fall backwards into it.

***

Thank you so much for taking the time to read the blog. I love writing here, and I’m always trying to find more time to post and examine my own art and philosophy. I would love to redirect you to Patreon at the link below for anyone interested in seeing more behind the scenes and supporting the writing and art. I’m always trying to find ways to maximize my own work and to share it in ways that are honest and true to my practice. Would love to see you on there.

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/Reyliaslaby

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Daydreaming by the Japan Sea

reylia — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 13:16:25 +0000

The sun beat down on us as we carried our strange array of items to the shore. We were in the deep countryside of Kyoto, so far to the edge that we reached the Japan sea. The water was clear, and at this season it was inhabited by small bobbling jellyfish that beached themselves, creating a precarious trail down the beach. Amongst the plant matter, seaweed, and trash, these translucent stinging creatures did not jump into your immediate view.

I found myself the least worried about the jellyfish and remained concerned about the unexpected heat. The weather report was fickle the past week, but on the day of the shoot, it forecasted cloudy weather—a relief to the photographer I am. And yet, here we all were, completely suffocating in a humid heat that seemed to permeate all the way to the bone.

It was in this setting that I found myself with this particular concept, clutching my strange items. Two different fish tanks, a wide range of nature-safe food coloring, a child’s school desk and chair from the Showa era, and a large prickly and loose shimenawa that was gifted to me from the temple near my home. I walked with this thick purification rope, it tickled my fingers as it left a trail of rice hay.

The day held an uneasiness. The heat inspired a feeling of rush in my team. Intentionality was left by the wayside, and was replaced with urgency: We must get this done quick.

Feelings such as these are rarely conducive to a successful shoot, at least for me. If I am lucky and get a good shot by chance, then the feelings associated with the shoot can often taint the final image.

I was lucky though. The model who joined was gracious and patient, cheerfully holding her parasol above her head during the breaks, with no trace of having broken a single sweat. Just watching her made it seem ten degrees cooler.

We splashed dashes of color into the aquarium. Red to the right, yellow in the middle, and blues and purples to the left. In the commanding heat, I watched the colors float and merge. I observed them, and as my intent became more fixated, they became a mirage in a desert. The light these smokey wisps of rainbow reflected was beautiful, they bounced on the glass walls of the tank and spilled through to the shore.

With this mixing of colors came new lessons. I constantly seem to learn on the spot what my desired vision is, through trial and error. The only issue is that the period of error has a time and financial limit: Bringing a whole team for a personal project isn’t cheap, and chances for do-overs are slim. So there was a tightness within my chest, as I reluctantly settled on a few ways the colors would go. Perhaps I didn’t experiment enough? What if it was better with sparkles?

Pangs of self-doubt plagued me, as they often do to artists. But I quelled their ridicule for the duration of the shoot, conjuring up any possible feelings of assertiveness.

We began to set up the desk and chair as the sun was setting. Not a complicated setup per se, but we had to take certain things in mind. The tide was rising, the ground was uneven, and the light was angled awkwardly in line with the shoreline. But despite these little grievances, there was something peaceful and familiar about this little frame.

While I have never gone to school myself, I still remember sitting at a large table, dutifully running through my textbooks, and distracting myself constantly with stories I would tell myself, and scenes I would find myself imagining.

This set somehow reminded me of those pockets of time, these quintessential moments that pop up in adulthood very briefly. They are quiet moments of bliss, and they are often paired with daydreaming.

Now as adults, our empty spaces of time are not filled with the whimsy of thought-play but are defaulted to what lives in our cellphones. We don’t desire to exist in our own minds, the obsidian screen is a far cushier place to wander to.

I observed this set; the waves crashed slowly into the legs of the table and chairs, leaving globs of bubbly sea foam at the model’s feet.

The joyful swelling of the waves radiated through the discomfort, but that is the persuasion of the sea. When people come close to the water, we are convinced that no matter how hot or sandy, we are by the beach and that is good.

As the sun lowered itself, we packed up our things. We were now the last people on the beach, while earlier we shared the shore with a few rowdy groups. We were all exhausted, pushing kilos of gear in a cart through the resistance of the sand, and then up a long flight of granite stairs.

I stood at the edge of the steps, just where the sand began to start. Under the ruse of making a final check of the beach, I watched the sunset fall under the horizon. The pinks, yellows, and blues danced with the clouds in the sky, and I found myself reminded of the colors in the fish tank. I imagined the clouds swirling, twisting. I saw myself up there with them, and I left my own reality for a little while.

Five minutes after I had dove into reverie, I was awakened by a shout from the top of the stairs, telling me it was time to go. “What are you doing? Daydreaming?” I sighed, feeling broody at the interruption, but I knew I had to return back down to earth sometime.

I started walking up to the parking lot. My muscles were sore, and the skin on my shoulders was singed from sunburn. I turned around one last time to see the colors, only to find they had been washed away by the blue of the approaching night.

The swelling of the waves continued as I walked to the car, one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. It was my closing music, and looking at the pictures I took from the day, I can still hear them.

***

Thank you so much for taking the time to read the blog. I love writing here so much, and I’m always trying to find more time to post. For anyone interested in donating, that would be so wonderful. Sending so much love.

Paypal: contact@reyliaslaby.com

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I Am Here to Experience All of It

reylia — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:08:33 +0000

Awarding myself with kindness has never been my strong suit. In the past, I have often deemed my needs to be secondary, only deserving of a menial glance, even from myself.

But with everything that has arisen this year and the year before, I have realized, not too late, that the framework of living does not fall on a linear path.

This year, while I have no solid list of things on any Resolution list, there are things I’ve desired of myself that have bled into the new year from the previous one. This list stems from my experiences as an individual with trauma to sift through, and as a person with anxiety to understand, but one I’d like to call curious anxiety. Where despite all the pains and frustrations, I am still eager to return to the world each day and figure out how I can live more peacefully and happily.

Sleep To Heal

While this list takes new forms daily, and I do not by any means give myself a hard time when I fall short of it, I use this as a daily guideline for me and my future. To help myself fully comprehend what brings me joy, and how I can reward myself in the ways I need to.

Ironically, while I used to pride myself on waking up at the crack of dawn in the summer, it was not a permanent virtue. Now in the winter, I find myself waking up as late as 10 AM, and unable to fall asleep until 2 in the morning. Originally, that would horrify me. I would give myself unsurmountable grief for not being the outstanding citizen I thought I should have been. I felt that my lopsided sleep schedule would inevitably correlate to my imminent failure as a human being.

But, now I realize it does not. There are beautiful things your brain can create in the midnight hours. 3 AM can be a magical time to witness, and feeling pangs of guilt for experiencing different times of the day now just doesn’t make sense. Be open to experimenting with different sleep schedules, and as long as you are getting enough hours in and taking care of yourself, there is no shame in when your body tells you when it is time to sleep.

Pockets of Stillness

One aspect of life that I realized I needed to change was something I call my intake/outtake ratio. These days with the advent of new technology, we are inevitably less inspired to summon deeper thoughts and feelings from ourselves, fearing what might be dislodged from the depths of our psyches. With this fear of intimacy with ourselves, the innate drive to create is lulled. We have become content with content, in a constant state of taking multiple lives.

The creators we admire and what they make can be beautiful and inspiring, this is true. But once we are absorbing so much that we start to doubt our own capabilities is when we must take a pause, and examine the inner workings of our minds.

There are ways to go against the waves of this phenomenon that pulls us away from ourselves. We need to be curious about the pool of thought that exists in our heads, and we need to not just wade in it, but to float deep down to the depths.

How we do it can vary depending on the person, but the first step is in the realization that we have exceeded our capacity of intake. We’ve seen all the images we need to see, we’ve read all that we need to read, now all that’s left is to investigate what stuck around in your own head, what decided to remain? What resonated with you?

One way to bring out these honest things inside you is to welcome stillness, to put yourself in places of quiet. One day, don’t go shopping with your cellphone. Banish all electronics from your bedroom. Sit in a bathtub without any music, or if you’re in Japan like me, stay in a sento for a few hours and ruminate. Take a walk with just a piece of paper and a pencil, and as you move your body, you will be surprised as to what beautiful words and thoughts spill out as you walk.

Making Peace from the pieces

What I find most valuable, is to be able to use all the parts of life and create a beautiful and unabashed mosaic of who we are. Not taking our past into account unmoors us, leaving us floating further away from who we can be.

During the most difficult moments in life, we are always in anticipation of something better. We can’t wait to go through it, and we can’t wait till we are finally in a place where we are better and the moments of hardship have finally made their final bow.

We can’t leave our past behind us completely, but we can give them new meaning in our lives. Within my photography, this type of scrupulous introspection has been a constant practice. There is no consolation that compares to taking the things that were once heavy to carry and finding that they now can be lifted with ease.

Experiencing All of It

And finally, the biggest resolution of all: No matter what, no matter where I am in life, I want to be myself as much as I can.

I never would have vowed to do something so simple before, until I realized that the task of being yourself is not only a difficult thing to do, but it is one of the most worthy ventures you can embark on.

The world is too dark and dreary to not be yourself, to not reward yourself with the pleasure of being pure and honest. It has nothing to do with proving something to the world, to use it as leverage to get somewhere in life, but it has everything to do with fully experiencing it. To take it all in, the good and the bad, and hold it close, saying: I am here for you, Life. I am here. To experience all of it.

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When Creation Runs Dry

reylia — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 06:09:41 +0000

Oftentimes I sit in a daze, unsure of anything. I sit for hours, days. And yet nothing comes to me. There are no epiphanies, no moments of revelation. Simply, a vast landscape of white sweeps before me, a desolate and rolling mental scene.

This is not new. These persistent emotions, although a discomfort, have made themselves a companion to me. When they pat my shivering hand, I cannot escape the deception of their relief. Somehow, a warmth emanates from them. I am convinced of the virtues habits that I had vowed to not repeat, and find myself so easily slipping into the rut of corruption.

The days are pungent with the smells of burning quicksand, stagnation, procrastination, and self-harm. All of these.

I feel myself sway from one thing to the other, bouncing from one document to file. Unstable, unable to fight one battle at a time. They must all be won simultaneously, there is no time for tactics, no time for meditation. Just fighting invisible demons in my mind, the same ones I run to for comfort in the evenings when the sun is able to set. I tell myself that it is this time when I need my vices, when suddenly they are transformed from monsters, to loving creatures. That they contribute to my form and benefit my mind.

I ask myself, why. Why is it me with this mind, one unable to properly steer the quaking and wheezing ship? Why am I not a more skilled sailor?

I write this in confusion, but in fondness of it as well. The struggle is familiar to us all. Why do we succumb to these habits that not only take us away from creating better versions of ourselves, and push us towards happier futures, but further drag us down the same holes we had struggled with much effort to remove ourselves from.

I may never know. But I do feel that there is comfort in pain. And in the times where nothing is for sure, where the pandemic has fully encased the world, there are very few things that feel stable and joyful. Sometimes a dopamine hit is just what we need, a stable influx of our physical chemicals. Unfortunately getting it from the outside world means going outside, where we are encouraged not to embark out to.

When we can excuse ourselves from them, it is nice not to exist in our own worlds, and sometimes not feeling is the best feeling there is. But I’m at a point where escapism no longer satisfies but frustrates. Can it finally be the time where I can know exactly what I am, and not feel fear or consequence or embarrassment?

Nothing is promised. There need not be any, except the one we can give to ourselves. That no matter where we are in life, that when we breathe, we will be able to thank the oxygen that fills our lungs, and the blood that races through our bodies. For this moment, we are here. And that is what we have for certain.

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The Truest Form of Art

reylia — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 03:11:58 +0000

The ascetic life is appealing to me. As a person who is constantly confounded by life’s daily rituals, to live simply and to have a constant single-tracked routine is one that I dream of. To avoid the mistake of painting myself into a corner of life.

As I come into myself late into the evenings, where the waters of my brain are still enough to see though, I am forced to come face to face with ancient frustrations. Ones that have stared into the depths of humanity ever since the awareness of mortality breached the shores of the psyche.

It is hard to not be fearful when that piercing glare reaches through us past our skin, almost threatening the fabric of our very being. This glare questions everything, including the validity of our work, its purpose, while trying to stay afloat as the waters of our own despair rise. Are we powerless to stop it?

What is art? Can art be birthed into a mental landscape such as mine? A person trapped within the mind of someone who is not allowed fully to be herself, and the societal shackles are still grating at her wrists. I am not mentally free, and yet, my mind finds ways to seep through the gates that bar me from true expression. It must get out somehow. It is an act of self preservation more than it is creation.

Once in a while, my one true mind rises to the surface amongst all the confusion. And she shocks, she is pure. She is very much so unlike the facade that was built up to represent her. She doesn’t smile, yet she reaches out to you with a warm hand, and says Weary Traveller, You can be yourself here.

Art is the conception of a lot of things. Desperation, but also love. A love for observing and mimicking the world, the imitation of nature, and making it even more fantastical to exist in.

But alas, we must take note. So many people desire to not only create beauty, but also to create something that makes sense to them and to others. To let themselves be seen, and to show others the stages of the minds without fear of nonsensical charades. It is there in front of you, do you continue to watch, or do you walk away?

Either way, art is there for you to feel. It is the umbilical cord that you can willingly attach yourself to. Is this where you want to receive nourishment from? Can this artist provide you with it? Then you take it, and then absorb it, and let it become part of you.

I do not know what art is, no more than what art isn’t. But I know what feels good within my body, what rings honest, true, and right. Something that has no walls, no ill-intent, no deception to uncover. It is there just to exist, and perhaps maybe that’s what it is, truly at its core.

Art is the purest form of existence, and the things that emerge from it are the traces of this purity. It is perhaps what everyone is seeking deep down, not to create art, but to be allowed a life where they can be their truest form. And sometimes witnessing a life that is doing just that is sufficient for the masses. But not for all. And for that small unsatiated few, they become our artists.

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Crystal

reylia — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:50:44 +0000

A great challenge I face in life is rediscovering the joy within myself. I have often pondered the many mirrors that exist within our singular bodies, and how they reflect back to us. Sometimes they don’t even look like who we perceive ourselves to be, and yet, there they are, staring right into us.

The looking glass of joy is one that has been difficult to come across within my jagged mental hallways, but is an emotion constantly sought after. With this year, the myriad of struggles we all face has taken its toll, and feelings of elation seem foreign to our current states of being. And yet, I search, we search.

Oftentimes, in this daily trek for a comfortable and happy mind, I find that joy engulfs me when I least expect it. Initially so far away and distant, it then climbs on me like a fantastically invasive vine, and I cannot see anything except the happiness that surrounds me.

I remember certain moments in my own life when this has proven itself to be true. I remember 10 years ago in the springtime, when I first started renting the home I live in now. I laid out on my sofa, and stared out the windows into the wild greenery that was erupting in the garden. My eyes dashed around in my new home, and I felt a delicious swelling in my chest, one that I knew was joy. I whispered to my then-partner, who was on the sofa next to me, “I’m happy.” And I smiled, trusting that something beautiful was going to follow me.

For this photoshoot, that was my main focus, that initial concept. To show that gradual growing of joy, a perfect and pure emotion that leaves you with an acute awareness of your capacity for hope. That no matter how difficult things may become, no matter how desperate your search or how large greed may grow within our material world, there is an emotion that cannot be bought or sold, and asks for nothing more than for you to feel it and to pay attention.

Often as a photographer, it can be a challenge to keep the peace of your mind when you are working. I’ve felt it necessary to swim against the tidal wave of frustrations and doubts that come within the creative world. I’ve had to unlearn a large amount of things.

One of those things to unlearn is fear. When a client is involved on a shoot, there is always the crippling paranoia of looking professional enough, or the pantomime of competency. I’ve found these inner charades to be the antithesis of the creative work. We are not meant to feel fear in creation, but the strong bond and purity of collaboration. This is what I felt on this shoot with my friend Crystal.

I loved every moment of this shoot, even within its challenges and the inevitable hiccups that come in preproduction. I realized that when you work with the water instead of against it, it can take you only to one place. A place where you aren’t fearful, but you are delivered back to the home within yourself. Because of this, I am ever grateful to this day, and all the incredible friends that made this possible. I cannot thank them enough, and will always look back on this day with a twinkle in my eye, and a jubilant heart.

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Dear Japan. A Letter To My Home

reylia — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 05:12:15 +0000

Dear Japan,

First, I want to say that I love you. You were the country where I took my first breath. My lungs filled with your air, and from there I was home. My first tears happened in your hospitals. My cries echoed throughout the hallway and took me throughout my childhood, becoming laughter, then to tears and back again.

You were the only home I knew.

I grabbed at floating cherry blossom petals from three years old until now. I danced in the summer with hanabi, the sparks singed my fingertips and wrists, but we gleefully let them burn. We did rajiotaiso at swimming pools. In the fall my sisters and I played in the fallen momiji, in a sea of red leaves. When winter came along we huddled together in front of the gas stove, our feet burned and our faces cold.

I love you, my country, my nippon. You made me who I am.

I love you in both sunshine and disasters. I scrambled under the table with my family in the Kobe earthquake of 1995. I stayed inside for your raging typhoons and your overpowering heat. But I swam in rivers and lakes of perfect water, hiked through mountains where the Gods live. Read Siddhartha in the middle of my quiet forest in my hometown.

But Japan, you see, you are my home, but you do not want me.

When I was a child, I told a crowd of people that I was from Japan. Everyone laughed hysterically, because I do not look Japanese. The laughter trailed through years all the way to adulthood. I found it echoing wherever I went, pulsing through meetings with friends, to schools, to bars as an adult. It echoed again yesterday when I said I was born in your cities. The man standing behind me in line at a restaurant who asked me where I was from laughed at me. “Americans are hilarious.” He said. The child in me wonders what I said wrong.

I trailed to my working life as well. “We think our clients would prefer having someone Japanese” I was told several times in job interviews when I was younger.

You see, I may not look or sound exactly how most Japanese do. My parents aren’t from here. No Japanese blood runs through my veins.

I want you to know Japan, it does indeed hurt to love you. I wince when I explain my background and someone asks if that is “An American Joke”. No sir, it isn’t.

Having old men stare at me on the train because I was blonde, from the ages 6 to now, then go back to reading their porn magazines right next to me isn’t a joke.

It isn’t a joke when I’m followed home at night, with drunken people from my town jeering. “Hey American girl, how much are you?”

I didn’t understand when I was a child why I was stared at. Why people silently take photos of me without thinking I see them. I am here. I exist. I see you.

It is painful to argue with people, when they tell me and list off the reasons why I’m not from Japan. Where they tell me where I belong. Asking me if I “understand”, with each conversation.

Or even the simplest questions I get often. Do you like Japan? Yes sir. Can you eat natto? Yes sir. Can you use chopsticks? Yes sir.

It hurt the most when someone knew my story. They knew where I was born. Then said my art was interesting, saying it was fascinating to see Japan from a foreigner’s perspective. Sir, I’ve breathed in Japan just as much as your daughter has. We are the same age. I’ve only ever lived here.

As an adult, it makes me frustrated that I never had Japanese citizenship, despite being born and raised here. I care about this country as much as anyone does, maybe sometimes more, because I have to fight to make people believe that this is my home. I have to fight to convince people.

Dear Japan, I hope you can love me one day, as much as I love you. This is unrequited, I know. I can feel it in my bones. I do not know if I can make you want me, with my third culture mind and soul. I am not exactly like all of you. But perhaps, one day, despite it all, you can open your arms to me. And I can finally be your daughter.

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My Last Photoshoot of 2020

reylia — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 15:15:36 +0000

Where do I start with this beautiful day?

Between surgeries and the whole world turning bottom up, this was my first proper Fine Art shoot of 2020. Two weeks (I believe) of planning and making props. I lost sensation at my fingertips from the hot glue gun for making the flowers. But it was so glorious. I felt so much love for every person who helped make this come true.

The images came to me while I was visiting Tokyo. I was in my partner’s apartment, sketching things out. Somehow, this image landed on the page. As soon as it did I became emotional, knowing that it encapsulated my year.

This year especially, I found myself frustrated over and over with what I felt were limitations. One being a spontaneous 7cm blood clot in my ovaries, which needed emergency surgery as well as months of convalescence. It compounded the constant feelings I had to be somewhere else, and sometimes even be someone else. Unable to leave my home for several months this year taught me something though, and this quote that I love tells it well.

“I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days”.

I truly love that quote. It speaks of the greatness and the beauty that is within, and it taught me so much. To truly know that everyone has all they need, right now. This is in essence what inspired this concept. For a long time, I felt like I couldn’t move or escape what I thought were limitations. As it turns out, I had so much beauty at my fingertips. It took a lot for me to finally see that, and embrace it.

I’m not a poet, but along with the artwork I wrote a short poem to go along with it.

I found myself encased in this unknown world
Movement small, breath weak. I was unsure
Of this life; And I awoke, meek

My limitations were but one
That I could not see

What strength
And what beauty
Within myself, Surrounded me

All my love from my small city in Japan. Have an amazing New Years.

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