Three of the Best Gifts

This is the first post in a noncommittal series of short-list-like posts I'd like to make.

This is a list of three of the best gifts that I've ever been given. It's not a comprehensive list and it's in no particular order, this is just three of my favourite things that I've ever been given.

1.) One Thousand Paper Cranes

In November 2011, I made a joke to Jessie Fast that she should sent me 1,000 paper cranes, and for Christmas, she did. This isn't all of them, a great deal of them are presently hanging from my ceiling. I remember being absolutely stunned when I opened the box. I've never been so shocked or so surprised and awed by a gift.

2.) Letters, Notes, & Cards; basically anything with Words

I love words... always have. I sort of live off words of affirmation and I can remember things people have said to me about me for years and years and years. I'd rather get a crumpled up napkin with words from a loved one on it than a set of lotion from The Body Shop any day. This is a little wicker box that I bought some years ago, it's stuffed full cards and letters and notes. The top card is a Christmas card from Robyn Nelson. I know, it looks like a birthday card but that's only because Robyn chose the BEST card out there to include in my Secret Santa present for our roommate exchange in 2008.

3.) Handmade Photo Album

The year I turned 22 was my Golden Birthday. That year, Ai Melody and I went on an adventure around Seattle that ended with my first (and so far, only) ever Korean BBQ experience (be careful the seeds you sow, people). Anyways, after dinner, she took me to one of her favourite secret places on Lake Washington and she gave me THIS, a photo album that she made from hand and filled with pictures from our various adventures. To this day, it's one of my favrourite things for all the love and time that she put into it. 

transit of venus

Hello. This is my new blog. 

This morning I drank dark coffee and sorted through old photos for my grandmother’s 100^th birthday party. I watched videos about North Korea on the internet. I got yet another urgent message about paperwork that I thought wasn’t  needed yet. I hoped it would rain more.

I stopped in at work to pick up my idea of an ideal-moving box. It’s sturdy, and squarish, and covered with the Café Vita logo. I guess, my thinking is that when I come back to Seattle, when I visit the tiny room where all my stuff will wait for me in the dark, I’ll want even the outsides of my boxes to reflect my idea of home. Home for me is a coffeeshop. I've been a barista a long time. 

I walked around my store with the box on my head.

I went to Japanese class; my last Japanese class of the year and my last class as an undergrad. After this, it’s just two tests and I’m finished.

But I don’t think I’m finished studying Japanese.

After class, I climbed into my car and spent time thinking about how I felt about the sound of Japanese when I first started studying it. Oh, I hated how it would get stuck in my head. I hated it’s sounds and I was frightened by it’s unfamiliarity.

Now, I feel comforted and at home when I’m enveloped in the sounds of a language that I’m still far from fully comprehending.

It's strange how home is this ever- evolving idea. 

This evening, I ate thai at a sidewalk table outside a coffeeshop while the rain poured off the roof just feet away. 

I read the paper. 

I thought about the unknown future.

I didn't see the transit of venus. It's been too cloudy here in Seattle.

I won’t pretend to know why some days feel more solemn than others. 

You might say it’s the rain.

But I’d say you’re wrong.