Wednesday, December 31, 2025 — Clear Skies
The day before yesterday,
cup noodles.
Yesterday,
supermarket sushi.
For a few days now,
my body had been feeling… stagnant somehow.
Not constipated exactly—
everything was still functioning fine—
but there was this heavy feeling inside me.
Tightness in my back,
especially around my shoulders and neck.
Like my whole circulation had slowed down and become sluggish.
I happened to be reading a book by Momoko Sakura,
and there was a part about cupping therapy.
I remember thinking,
If I did cupping right now,
I’d probably end up covered in deep purple marks.
That was the kind of condition my body felt in.
A while ago,
I randomly picked up Haruki Murakami’s
Novelist as a Vocation at the library.
That was where I learned
about the way he structures his days,
and his habit of running.
I admired it, purely and simply.
And honestly,
I’d already had a feeling
that my body itself was craving movement.
Cardio.
The kind of movement that suddenly gets everything flowing again.
That refreshing feeling after a run—
like your whole body says,
Ah. I’m circulating again.
I think my body wanted that feeling.
I’d been avoiding the idea for a while,
pretending not to notice it,
but lately it felt like
everything around me kept whispering,
Go run.
So when I woke up that morning,
I thought,
…Maybe I should.
And I started getting dressed to run.
The last time I ran,
I ended up with pain behind my right knee for days afterward.
So this time,
I actually prepared properly.
Warm-up first.
Turn on the core.
Pay attention to running form.
The moment I started running,
I could feel how heavy my body was.
My hips bouncing heavily.
It felt like I was slamming
all my body weight and gravity
straight into the pavement.
And I thought,
At this rate,
I’ll probably hurt myself instead.
But surprisingly,
my breathing held up.
I could run longer than I expected.
(Probably around the pace of Moriyan’s fast walking.)
My breath quickened,
my heart started pounding,
and I could feel my ribcage expanding properly.
That sensation alone felt wonderful.
Like—
Yes. Good. Things are moving again.
After that,
I alternated between running and walking,
almost like circuit training.
I had forgotten both my glasses and contacts,
so everything farther ahead looked slightly blurred.
The streets before sunrise looked beautiful that way.
Traffic lights and street lamps
glowed softly in the haze.
Maybe this is the physiotherapist part of me,
but when I run,
I become hyperaware of tiny discomforts in my body.
I adjusted my slightly overarched back.
Stack the pelvis and ribcage properly.
Keep the core engaged.
Ah—
the twisting habit in my right ankle
was affecting my groin and hip.
So I stopped.
Did a little Goromaru-style pose,
stretched my hamstrings,
moved my hips around,
reset my body—
and ran again.
And then,
little by little,
I started feeling it.
That sensation of being able to run properly.
Earlier,
I’d been pounding my body into the ground.
Now it felt more like bouncing lightly forward.
When my core engaged correctly,
it almost felt like
my body weight was being lifted
a few millimeters off the earth.
My arm swing grew bigger.
Suddenly the previous pace felt too slow.
So I asked myself,
How fast do you actually want to run?
And I let go of the limit.
It felt incredible.
I was really running.
Not jogging anymore.
Actual running speed.
And I suddenly thought—
When I was in elementary school,
I could run a whole kilometer at this pace.
Maybe the body I had back then
really was my best condition.
Maybe living your own life means
continuously experimenting with what “your best” really is—
both mentally and physically.
I found myself wondering,
What is my body’s best state?
Body shape?
Appearance?
Weight?
All of them feel partly true,
and partly not.
But this feeling—
this lightness.
This sense that something stagnant inside me
had started moving again.
I couldn’t put it into words,
but it felt like my body itself was telling me,
You already know the answer.
At lunch,
I talked with Moriyan.
We ended up saying,
“It’s important to find the place
where you shine the brightest.”
Apparently he had been deeply moved
by a book by Masayoshi Son.
Meanwhile,
I was thinking about people like Momoko Sakura
and Naomi Takayama.
The people I admire most.
And honestly—
if they were judged only by the standards of
“normal working society,”
I suspect people might call them hopeless.
(That sounds rude, I know.)
But the truth is,
that’s sometimes how I feel about myself too.
And yet somehow,
I became too good
at surviving in the world of “proper adults.”
Too good at blending in.
Too good at functioning.
And I hate that sometimes.
Because deep down,
that wasn’t what I truly wanted.
The people we admire—
they all seem to live fully as themselves.
From the outside,
they almost seem outrageous.
Uncontained.
I want that too.
I want to go further.
To stop limiting myself.
To find the place
where I come alive the most—
and let myself shine there.
By the way,
during my morning walk,
I stopped by the supermarket.
There were packs of chicken carcasses
and duck skin marked half off,
so of course… I bought them.
One of my patients had told me
they use them to make broth for New Year soup.
And besides,
I already had vegetable scraps saved up at home.
I’d heard that vegetable scraps and chicken bones
make incredible stock.
And honestly—
I love things like that.
To the world,
they’re scraps.
But to me,
they’re raw gems.
Treasures capable of becoming
the most beautiful soup.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
I had one of those dreams—
the kind that pulls you backward into the past,
the kind that leaves you feeling small,
like you haven’t changed at all.
Not a very pleasant dream.
So many people from my past appeared in it.
Even people I barely knew.
The kind where you wake up thinking,
Why did that person even show up in my dream?
Whenever I dream,
I tend to carry the emotions with me long after waking up.
Even if I can’t clearly remember the details of the dream itself,
the feelings stay.
Very vividly.
But at times like this,
I know a little magic phrase that helps me.
Whenever something tries to pull me backward into the past,
it usually means I’m standing right in front of change.
It happens because I’m actually trying to grow.
Apparently,
the brain hates change.
It will use every trick it can
to catch you off guard
and pull you back into familiar patterns.
And strangely,
it doesn’t even care whether the old pattern was good or bad for you.
To the brain,
“familiar” simply feels safer.
Even if it’s painful.
But to my brain, I want to say this:
I am going to change.
Absolutely.
And eventually,
that change will become something
that feels safe for you too.
Until then,
I’m not giving up.
We ate the sweet red bean paste I made yesterday
on top of soft boiled mochi for a snack,
while watching Mikami Sensei together.
Later in the evening,
Moriyan said,
“Let’s go for a walk.”
So we went back outside
to visit the cats again.
There were around nine of them today.
Even a white one.
On the way home,
we peeked into the area once more,
even though we didn’t have any food left.
Without snacks,
the cats acted completely indifferent.
So aloof. Haha.
We stopped by Olympic
and bought supermarket sushi,
and since we suddenly felt like eating gyoza too,
we picked up frozen dumplings.
Two days in a row now,
our dinners have been slightly junk-food-ish.
Moriyan also convinced me to watch
Jujutsu Kaisen.
I had unfairly avoided it before.
Apparently,
he had actually wanted to go see the movie together too.
I wish he would tell me things like that more often.
Monday, December 29, 2025
This morning,
I’m clearly under the influence of Haruki Murakami’s book I read yesterday.
I woke up,
read a little of Naomi Takayama’s Hibi Nikki,
let myself sink into that soft, hazy feeling for a while,
and then thought,
Alright then… what should I write today?
That kind of mood.
And now I’m sitting here with my laptop open.
I had been looking forward to this New Year holiday so much.
From December 27th to January 5th.
I kept telling myself,
“I’m going to make this a vacation full of World 2.”
Maybe I got a little too excited about it.
But somehow,
the days are disappearing unbelievably fast.
It’s already the third day.
I catch myself counting the days left.
And when I do,
it starts feeling like the fun is slowly ending,
and “reality” is waiting on the other side.
But I don’t want to think that way.
These ten days are special.
But even after they end,
we’re still moving toward World 2,
one step at a time.
So maybe
I don’t need to grieve each passing day so much.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself.
While reading Hibi Nikki,
I suddenly realized something.
People who cook professionally
have their own recipes inside them.
That’s why they can make things so naturally,
so effortlessly.
And somehow,
I understood that feeling.
My right shoulder hurts often.
My lower back too—
especially the left side.
And whenever I feel discomfort,
I immediately start tracing the cause.
Ah, that posture wasn’t good.
I moved while disconnected from my core again.
Things like that.
If I go jogging,
my shoulder stiffness disappears.
And then I realize:
Oh. My breathing had become shallow.
I hadn’t been moving enough.
My circulation had slowed down.
Because I know my body’s patterns,
sometimes simply returning it
to a neutral position
becomes both stretching
and core training at the same time.
Daily care is actually pretty simple.
If you can notice discomfort,
then all you really have to do
is guide yourself back to neutral.
And if you have extra energy,
you simply keep moving from there.
But beginners—
people without that kind of framework or awareness—
might just stay stuck in a vague sense of,
“Something feels wrong.”
That thought crossed my mind today.
I wrote all of this while simmering azuki beans.
They took forever to soften.
So I kept walking back and forth
between the stove and my desk.
At one point,
looking at the simmering liquid made me crave cocoa.
I tasted a spoonful.
Nope.
Definitely not cocoa.
But somehow,
I still felt like this broth could become delicious cocoa somehow.
So maybe I’ll experiment later.
Moriyan came out during a break and asked,
“What’s that? Cocoa?”
And then immediately said,
“Now I kind of want cocoa too.”
We laughed because
we had been thinking the exact same thing.
Lately,
I’ve been realizing more and more
just how strong my habit of introspection is.
Sometimes I think—
I’d love for this to become my work someday.
To work quietly at home,
sitting at a desk,
thinking and writing like this.
This diary has no rules.
So the moment I notice,
Ah, I’m thinking again,
I just write it down.
I woke up around 5 a.m.
And now it’s already 10.
For five hours straight,
my thoughts had been endlessly circling inside my head,
and only now do they finally feel like
they’ve started coming outside.
Maybe that’s why
I struggle to express myself verbally.
Because before my thoughts become words,
they still exist as unfinished feelings,
floating around without shape.
But maybe,
if I keep writing like this,
I’ll slowly get better at it.
At work,
people often tell me
I explain the body in a clear and gentle way.
But my own feelings—
those are much harder to organize.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Last night, while lying in bed,
I suddenly became curious about how Naomi Takayama went from being a chef to becoming a writer.
Somehow, I felt like
if I understood that,
I might understand how I’m supposed to move forward too.
So I borrowed three books.
But I still haven’t found
the exact sentence that feels like an answer.
Maybe I’m panicking a little.
Whenever I start searching for answers outside myself,
it usually means I’m rushing.
Because deep down,
the answer is probably already inside me.
Maybe, just like Takayama-san
started keeping a diary while working at Kuu Kuu,
I simply need to begin too.
My World 1.5 is Pisio.
And beside Pisio,
I want to keep recording these diary-like reflections
in a place where other people can see them too.
I think that’s what I truly want to do.
And if I quietly keep doing that,
little by little,
I believe it will eventually lead me to World 2.0.
So really,
all I have to do… is try.
My heart already knows that.
But because I don’t fully trust myself yet,
I keep searching outside for reassurance.
Like asking,
“This is okay, right?”
But honestly,
I think my heart already knows where it wants to go.
Since December,
I’ve been keeping these diary records consistently.
I’ve never really thought of myself
as someone who particularly loves writing
or is naturally talented at it.
(Though back in elementary school,
my essays often got selected—
mostly because my mother helped me with them.)
But looking back,
I realize I’ve always been deeply introspective.
I desperately want to live my own life.
And I can clearly see myself
struggling, experimenting, clinging to that desire.
What I couldn’t quite figure out was:
How did Takayama-san gradually open her diary to the outside world?
In what order did it happen?
From what I can tell,
she created her own website around 2002
and maybe started recording things there.
The site itself sounded incredibly simple—
the kind of page that would still load
even under strict data limits.
The diary entries weren’t daily.
And they didn’t feel overly edited or polished either.
Almost like she simply uploaded her notes as they were.
Like being allowed
a tiny glimpse inside someone’s inner world.
When I try to share something publicly,
I tend to dress it up first.
And maybe that’s exactly why I can’t keep it going.
I don’t know whether my writing
could ever become the kind of diary
people return to the way they do hers.
But I think the reason Takayama-san has continued for over twenty years
is precisely because she doesn’t decorate it too much.
And I think her readers love that honesty.
I’ve already built a habit
of recording my introspection privately.
But if it stays locked away forever—
then even if I continue for twenty years,
all I’ll have at the end
is stacks and stacks of notebooks.
And somehow that feels a little sad.
Besides,
that alone won’t take me to World 2.
Even if it’s just one person,
I’d be happy if someone could feel my version of World 2
and resonate with it.
That’s why
I want to leave these records somewhere visible.
So lately I’ve been thinking carefully about the first step.
Should I use Note?
Or my own website?
With Note,
I know I’d become distracted by other people’s content.
I’d start caring about likes.
And eventually,
I’d probably stop treating it as “just a record”
and start feeling pressure to turn it into “content.”
So after thinking about it,
I decided I want to quietly keep these records
on my own website instead.
When I told Moriyan about it,
he said,
“During New Year’s I want to spend time reading and doing my own things too,
so let’s try setting it up after the holidays, around the 11th.”
And somehow,
that made me happy.
Lunch today was inspired by Hibi Nikki.
I made something loosely based on Takayama-san’s natto soboro fried rice.
I did have natto—
but instead,
I used a homemade miso my mother made.
The one that smells strangely like natto.
It’s made with soy milk instead of whole soybeans.
A little funky-smelling,
but sweet and rich.
Almost like moromi miso—
the kind you want to eat directly with cucumber slices.
I really love it.
The recipe simply said “miso” for seasoning,
and I thought,
Well… natto and miso together might both be covered by this one mysterious miso.
So I slowly cooked garlic in oil,
added the very last tiny piece of butter left in the fridge,
then plenty of the “natto-smelling miso”
and lots of sesame seeds.
At that point alone,
it had already become a delicious sauce.
Such an unexpectedly fun combination.
A surprisingly good discovery.
Natto-smelling miso fried rice?
Honestly… it works.
It was so good
I immediately thought,
Next time I need to make enough for seconds too.
I finished reading Takayama-san’s first book,
Shokoku Kusō Ryōriten.
Then in the afternoon,
I started Hibi Nikki 2.
I actually wanted to read Volume 1 first,
but the library didn’t have it.
Still,
the thing I keep searching for while turning the pages is:
Why did she decide to leave her restaurant?
That’s what I really want to know.
I genuinely enjoy tracing other people’s lives.
Maybe because in them,
I find perspectives I never had,
choices I never would’ve made,
ways of living I never imagined.
Reading feels almost like
getting to briefly experience another lifetime.
So I want to enjoy it slowly.
Ah—
there was one line I especially wanted to remember:
“Whether it’s machines, tools, or anything else,
people who create things probably need to understand care and maintenance.”
I really love that way of thinking.
Caring for your body.
Maintaining it.
Just like a craftsman treasures their tools,
the body is essential too.
Precious.
Because no matter where I go,
it’s always with me.
That’s why I think it’s important
to know what makes your body feel better.
What heals it.
What restores it.
What helps it feel aligned again.
And maybe the only reason we can understand those things at all
is because discomfort exists.
Pain.
Fatigue.
Struggle.
Those unpleasant sensations teach us.
So maybe those “annoying” feelings deserve gratitude too.
Because they’re always giving me opportunities
to say,
“Thank you,”
to myself.
Moriyan seemed like he wanted some alone time today,
so I quietly came to the library by myself in the afternoon.
And I found a really good book.
Maybe precisely because I’m not a genius,
I’ve decided to truly live my own life.
To make both my physical body and my mind strong enough
to walk straight toward the life I actually want.
Strip away what isn’t necessary.
Maintain the body.
Move it.
Exercise.
Train the mind too—
through affirmations, reflection, introspection.
And keep those two things balanced.
Build the strongest possible foundation
for the decision:
I will live my own life.
And slowly create a rhythm
that actually feels like my rhythm.
Because honestly,
trying to live the life you want
while constantly overwhelmed by physical pain or emotional distress—
that’s incredibly hard.
So I want to keep peeling unnecessary things away.
Again and again.
Listening carefully to my body.
Maintaining myself as I go.
And within that,
if I can spend time doing what I love
alongside people I genuinely care about—
that alone feels like
a beautiful life to me.
Waking up early in the morning,
making coffee,
and thinking,
Alright then… what should I write today?
Honestly,
that sounds like the perfect beginning to a day.
So Murakami-san reads neuroscience magazines too.
Interesting.
No wonder some of it overlaps with what Joe Dispenza talks about.
And once again I found myself thinking—
exercise really is important.
Especially cardio.
Maybe I should seriously make it a habit too.
(That thought came while reading Haruki Murakami’s Novelist as a Vocation.)
For dinner,
something connected in my mind.
A friend had given me some pickles as a souvenir,
and recently I had learned about desalting techniques
from Takayama-san’s books.
So I decided to try it immediately.
The pickles were bamboo shoots and sansho pepper.
Delicious—
but a little too salty to eat as-is.
So I soaked them in water for about an hour.
And really—
they mellowed perfectly.
Then I suddenly thought:
What if I turned this into takikomi gohan?
A pretty good idea, honestly.
And conveniently,
I already had glutinous rice soaking in water
because I wanted to finish it before the end of the year.
I have a slightly difficult relationship with mochi rice.
I once failed badly making sekihan with it,
so I still get nervous around it.
I never know the right water ratio.
And even though that concern had been floating in the back of my mind all day—
I completely forgot about it
and cooked it with normal rice measurements anyway.
Which explains why…
parts of it turned out a little mushy.
Not as disastrous as last time,
since I mixed it with regular rice too.
The aroma was wonderful though.
The flavor itself felt slightly light,
but I had a feeling
it would become delicious if the moisture settled properly.
So I shaped it into onigiri
and decided to save it for tomorrow’s lunch.
Meanwhile,
I think Moriyan is feeling a little nervous
about the short-term job he starts after New Year’s.
He’s been at home for so long,
and now he’ll suddenly be interacting with people again.
But honestly,
I know he’ll do well.
So I can sit there calmly and tell him,
“You’ll absolutely be fine.”
Saturday, December 27, 2025
As the end of the year approached,
I found myself wanting to cook all sorts of things,
so I borrowed a stack of books by my favorite cooks and food writers.
One of them was by Masahiro Kasahara.
I’ve become really fond of him lately.
Well… actually,
I think I’ve quietly liked him ever since a few years ago,
when Sushiro collaborated with him on a sanma nigiri sushi.
I still remember how shocked I was by the combination:
sardine sashimi with green pepper sauce.
The idea surprised me.
Then the taste surprised me even more.
It was so good
I ordered three plates in a row.
It felt like the same kind of shock
I had when I first tasted Kurihara-san’s matcha and lemon panna cotta.
Kasahara-san’s cookbook also included pages that felt almost like essays.
There were parts that made me nod deeply to myself.
Like,
“Oh… chefs think about these things too.”
And somehow,
it felt similar to the way I think about caring for the body.
I’ve started to notice
that the people I’m drawn to often share something in common.
While reading Actually, One Dish Is Enough,
I jotted down a few thoughts.
“Don’t do things you don’t actually need to do.”
How many unnecessary things
have I spent my life doing?
The world feels overflowing with them.
Even most worries, probably,
come from things we never truly needed to do in the first place.
Maybe life is actually much simpler than we think.
I mean—
what rules are really there?
Like Kojikoji says:
“We’re not murdering anyone.
We’re not robbing anyone.
So what’s wrong with eating, sleeping, and playing?”
Honestly… exactly.
I think your true center starts to appear
only after you let go of all the unnecessary things.
Kasahara-san wrote that the three things a chef needs are:
skill, palate, and playfulness.
So naturally I started wondering:
What would mine be as a physical therapist?
Maybe:
knowledge, technique, and hospitality.
Knowledge and technique,
with enough experience,
can probably be learned by almost anyone to a certain level.
And honestly,
as AI continues evolving,
I think more and more of the “knowledge” and “technical” side of healthcare
should be replaced by AI.
But hospitality—
that part still feels different.
Even if AI becomes incredibly human-like,
I feel there’s still something
real humans can offer
that machines can’t fully replicate.
And according to Kasahara-san,
what all truly great chefs share is playfulness.
The desire to delight people.
Surprise them.
Move them emotionally.
And I realized—
maybe playfulness is also the common thread
among the people living in the “World 2.0” I dream about.
They’re adults.
But somehow, still children too.
For me,
playfulness comes from
a foundation of freedom and spaciousness—
and on top of that:
honesty and curiosity.
Whenever I’m doing something while wondering,
“I wonder if this would make someone happy?”
that’s usually when I’m happiest too.
Reading the afterword made me think again
about what it means to care for the body.
I’m a physical therapist.
I even became a certified Pilates instructor.
And yet—
I don’t train intensely every single day,
and I don’t have some perfectly sculpted body either.
But honestly?
That’s okay.
I want to say it proudly, like Bakabon no Papa would.
Some days I’m exhausted.
Some days I gain weight.
And maybe that’s precisely why
I remember to reconnect with my body again.
Not everyone is a model.
Building your body isn’t everyone’s job.
People have work.
Housework.
Children.
Life.
And there are days
when even if you want to care for your body,
you simply don’t have the energy left for it.
So maybe it’s okay
if you can’t stretch or work out every single day.
Maybe it’s enough
to work with your body gently,
according to the reality of each day.
What matters most is probably this:
Do you genuinely care about your body?
On painful days.
Happy days.
Days your stomach feels off.
Days you feel light enough to run.
Your body is always telling you something.
Because the body moves,
we get to experience things.
Feel things.
Live.
And maybe that is the greatest gift of all.
To notice the daily fluctuations,
and still be able to say,
“Thank you,”
to your own body.
I think that might be
the true essence of caring for yourself physically.
Later, I told Moriyan about the vision I have for Pisio.
He smiled and said,
“I like that.”
The biggest challenge, as always,
is still going from zero to one.
SNS and flyers don’t really feel efficient for us.
Or maybe they just don’t suit us.
So instead,
we thought:
maybe we should start participating in different events.
Actually meeting people.
Creating real points of connection with future clients ourselves.
So right there on the spot,
we searched for events
and signed up for one each in February, March, and April.
We’re reaching out
and creating opportunities with our own hands.
And honestly—
that feels right.
It really does.
We’re moving forward properly.
We really are.
Friday, December 26, 2025
The life I truly want
already exists somewhere inside me.
Are these things really what I want?
Not getting scolded.
Not making mistakes.
Not causing trouble.
Being seen as “capable.”
Ever since I was little,
there was always a part of me that thought,
“I don’t want to be the same as everyone else.”
Even with school art sets—
everyone else chose between the two standard options,
but I didn’t like either of them.
Instead,
I pointed to a tiny set printed in the corner of the flyer
and asked my teacher,
“Can I choose this one instead?”
Sometimes I felt proud of being different.
But there was also another side of me—
the vain side that wanted people to think of me a certain way.
To look at me a certain way.
Looking back now,
I think that version of myself just kept growing larger and larger.
In university.
Then even more as a working adult.
And slowly,
I became exhausted.
Cosmetics.
Clothes.
Bags.
Shoes.
I would feel satisfied for a moment after buying them—
but somewhere inside,
there was always this feeling of:
“It’s still not enough.”
As if I still hadn’t become
the kind of person people would truly notice.
Loneliness, maybe.
Or emptiness.
Something like that.
To be honest,
I never really liked drinking parties.
Or large groups.
Or gatherings I wasn’t genuinely interested in.
Sometimes I had fun once I went—
but I think I was always playing the role of someone else.
And because of that,
when I wasn’t invited,
I’d still feel hurt.
But now, looking back,
if someone asked me,
“Did you actually want to be there?”
the answer would honestly be no.
There were other things I wanted to do more.
Spending weekends doing DIY projects with my father.
Listening more carefully
to the quiet little “I want to…” inside me.
The other day,
I watched Chibi Maruko-chan and Kojikoji.
And suddenly I thought—
this feeling of ease… what is it?
Why does this feel so comfortable?
The feeling of:
“Whatever.”
“It doesn’t really matter.”
There’s an incredible freedom in being able to say that.
And honestly—
I think that’s who I’ve always been.
Unless it’s something life-threatening,
most things really don’t matter that much to me.
So why had I become so attached to everything?
I’m lazy sometimes.
Absentminded.
The kind of person people laugh at while helping.
“Seriously, what are you doing?”
That kind of person.
And when I remembered that,
my body suddenly felt lighter.
I used to be terrible with time.
People often told me,
“You need to plan backwards.”
And sure,
that skill is useful sometimes now.
But only when I choose to use it.
Most of the time,
I want to let it go.
I don’t want to constantly calculate ahead.
I want to live more by instinct—
by what feels right in front of me.
I forgot things all the time too.
And honestly,
I never understood why
I had to carry this and that everywhere.
Even school schedules—
something about them never quite suited me.
There was a time
when I tried hard to get along with people I didn’t even like.
But maybe that’s something
you can simply let go of too.
Kojikoji says it perfectly:
“If they don’t want to deal with you,
then you don’t have to deal with them either.”
Exactly.
I think it’s enough
to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about me,
and people I genuinely want to care about too.
Today was the first blue sky in a while.
But the wind was unbelievably strong.
The rain pants I wore for warmth almost blew away,
and even my sun visor flew off.
Honestly… a mess.
As I struggled against the wind,
I found myself thinking again:
“I really want to work from home.”
If I were home,
I could simply say,
“Wow, the weather is wild today,”
while staying warm and relaxed inside.
That’s the version of me living in World 2.
And if I happened to be outside on a day like this,
I’d probably laugh and say,
“Waaah!”
like I was on some amusement park ride.
Then I’d run into a café for shelter,
warm my hands around a cup of tea,
and happily lose track of time talking.
And when it was finally time to leave,
I’d step outside again and laugh:
“Waaah!”
Maybe by then the wind would have calmed down.
Maybe we’d smile and say,
“It settled down.”
And walk home happily.
There was something today that made me truly happy.
I realized—
I already have something
people would willingly pay for.
Something they genuinely want from me.
A woman from the office approached me today.
She told me she takes Pilates classes,
but feels like her body alignment keeps her from moving properly.
She said:
“I understand the images and instructions in my head…
but I feel like my body can’t quite do them.”
So she’d been searching for someone
who could explain things more specifically.
Someone who could really see what was happening in her body.
She asked about my lessons.
The price.
The details.
Honestly,
I still feel a little hesitant about getting involved privately with coworkers,
so I answered vaguely.
But I happily agreed to look at her body movement for a few minutes.
For about ten minutes before leaving,
I listened,
placed my hands carefully,
and pointed out a few things I noticed.
She looked genuinely happy.
And then I remembered—
something similar happened yesterday too.
One of my patients told her friends about me.
“She explains things so carefully,” she apparently said.
They all tried the exercises I taught her
and ended up laughing together while practicing them.
She told me proudly that her friends said,
“You’re so lucky to have someone check on you every week.”
And hearing that—
honestly made me so happy.
I realized something.
I already possess something valuable enough
to help people as an individual.
Not as part of a company.
Not as a title.
As myself.
That realization alone
made me happier than anything else today.
And then I wondered:
If I truly stood on my own one day,
what would I want to share with people?
Everyone focuses so much on:
“perfect form”
or
“doing things correctly.”
But I want people to experience the feeling of not being able to do something.
Because I think the most important part of “healing” or “alignment”
is the process itself.
The process is the healing.
“Looking beautiful”
or
“doing it perfectly”
those are just the bonus at the end.
Yesterday,
my lower back hurt a little.
But today,
it doesn’t hurt at all.
Today,
I feel so full of energy
I almost want to run.
My body isn’t particularly stylish or impressive.
But lately,
I’ve started loving this body
that responds so honestly and flexibly every single day.
I want to care for it.
To live while noticing
its daily fluctuations and rhythms.
Maybe that is what it truly means
to “take care of yourself.”
Friday, December 25, 2025
Momoko Sakura loved being at home.
It was freer than school.
You could do whatever you wanted.
So when she thought,
“Being a manga artist sounds nice—
you get to work from home,”
it somehow feels completely natural to me.
Because honestly,
I felt the same way as a child.
When I was in elementary school,
I often told people,
“My head hurts a little…”
and left school early.
It was never anything serious.
But I liked how worried everyone became.
I liked being taken care of.
On the way home,
my parents would buy me something delicious.
And if the doctor said,
“Nothing’s wrong. That’s good,”
we’d sometimes stop by a sushi restaurant afterward to celebrate.
When I stayed home alone,
they prepared everything for me:
good food, favorite videos, cozy blankets.
I completely indulged in that time alone.
While everyone else was still at school,
I remember thinking:
“I’m this free!”
And I loved that feeling so much.
There was something else
I deeply related to in Momoko Sakura’s writing too.
She disliked large groups of people.
I’m the same way.
Around Moriyan, my family,
or close friends,
I’m playful.
Goofy.
I love making people laugh.
But in front of coworkers
who aren’t truly close to me,
I don’t act that way at all.
And honestly—
I’ve never really liked drinking parties either.
Still, when I was little,
friends often came over to our house.
And I loved visiting theirs too.
My mother would make food and snacks,
and we’d all sit together saying,
“This is so good!”
Even though we saw each other every day,
we’d still laugh and scream and get excited over tiny things.
I think my mother enjoyed hosting too.
And honestly,
so did I.
Today, I told G something honestly.
“I want to work from home.
I really don’t want a work style that requires commuting every day.”
In reality,
I explained it in much more detail than that.
Then G said:
“Next,
let’s imagine together
what a week in the life of your ‘World 2 self’ would look like.”
So I started imagining.
Moriyan wakes up first,
and I slowly wake up beside him.
But I’m still half-asleep.
I play an affirmation video softly,
stretch under the blankets,
roll around sleepily.
I stay like that
until my body naturally wakes up.
Even if I spend an hour in a hazy daze,
it still feels like I gained something—
because it’s still early morning.
I’m glad Moriyan wakes up early.
By breakfast time,
I’m thinking:
“What should I do today?”
I brush my teeth,
tidy the house a little,
bake something sweet,
read a book.
I don’t plan too rigidly.
I want to spend my mornings intuitively.
Then breakfast.
We watch the news together,
talking about this and that.
After eating,
we have a little meeting together.
We share what we hope to create.
What we want from life.
“Maybe today we can spend the day like this.”
Something gentle like that.
In the mornings,
we each focus quietly on our own work.
As for me,
I write about the things I’ve been feeling lately.
Things I suddenly think,
“I want to put this into words.”
There are several themes I want to explore.
Maybe this one today.
Maybe another one tomorrow.
I want to follow my own rhythm.
On another day,
a close friend comes over around noon.
We hold a little tasting party
for “things that go perfectly with white rice.”
Everyone brings their favorites.
I prepare a few things too.
And I cook rice in the donabe.
“This one’s amazing!”
“No, wait, try this one!”
We laugh while eating together.
On another day,
I walk over to my parents’ house,
now close enough to visit easily.
My mother and I make pickles together.
Plums.
Rakkyo.
Takuan.
Seasonal little kitchen rituals.
And on another day,
my father comes over,
and I help maintain his body.
My father.
My mother.
Moriyan.
Close friends.
Maybe it’s okay
for there to be a tiny platform
inside our home.
I want to first give back
through my work and skills
to the people closest to me.
When I see someone’s movement improve,
I want to take notes.
“Oh, so this works.”
And if those discoveries eventually help someone else too,
that would make me even happier.
And of course—
there’s a cat in the house too.
Some days should simply be slow days.
Watching the cat.
Living lazily together.
Feeling the passing of time
through the morning sunlight
and the evening glow.
Today also happened to be
the day of a study session at work.
But thanks to Momoko Sakura somehow,
I didn’t feel too burdened by it.
Of course, right before it started,
I still got nervous.
The room was quiet.
Everyone stared down at the floor.
I was speaking passionately,
using my hands and body—
and honestly, nobody was really looking. (laughs)
But somehow,
that actually freed me.
I thought:
“Alright. Then I’ll just go all in.”
So I pulled people into it.
I invited someone with real lower back pain to the front,
checked their movement in front of everyone,
and demonstrated stretches together.
Little by little,
more smiles appeared.
Then laughter too.
And in the end,
the whole thing wrapped up in a genuinely good atmosphere.
That study session had been sitting quietly
in the corner of my mind for days.
But once it ended,
it disappeared so smoothly.
Almost effortlessly.
Maybe because that’s exactly how I wanted it to end.
I didn’t overthink it afterward.
I simply returned to work.
Right before leaving,
one of the office staff stopped me and said:
“Today was really great!
I have an anterior pelvic tilt too,
and everything you said made so much sense.
I want you to do another session sometime!”
Even if it was just one person,
I helped someone today.
And honestly,
that alone made me feel
it was all worth it.
Good job today, me.
Dinner.
Before I even opened the front door,
I could already smell something wonderful.
And when I stepped inside,
it smelled even better.
Moriyan had made minestrone soup
and gyudon toppings for dinner.
The minestrone had no unnecessary flavors in it at all.
Gentle,
but deeply comforting.
I had seconds.
The gyudon, meanwhile,
was a complete rice thief.
Sweetly seasoned,
with plenty of broth.
I cracked a raw egg over it,
and Moriyan and I shared one bowl of rice together.
I mixed everything together in the bowl and took a bite.
Pure happiness for the mouth.
Maybe that’s what “kofuku” really means.
Moriyan is definitely getting better at cooking.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
While I was baking kinako sesame cookies,
Moriyan came home from his early morning walk.
He had found a matching service
that connects therapists with clients.
So we signed up right away.
If I could earn even a basic income through something like this,
then maybe we wouldn’t have to force ourselves
to make “World 1.5” work entirely on our own.
(For context:
World 1.0 is our current life.
World 1.5 is the space between World 1 and World 2.)
And if that happened,
I could spend more energy expanding the vision for Pisio
and shaping it into something that truly fits World 2.0.
Hmm.
Honestly,
it felt pretty good.
Today was also the day we handed out flyers.
Realistically,
I don’t think this flyer alone
will suddenly bring people in.
But somehow,
it felt like this action itself
was turning some kind of invisible gear in the universe.
I caught myself thinking,
“Ah… this is it.”
You really do have to try something.
Not just think about it endlessly in your head—
actually move.
Actually act.
And sometimes,
just doing that changes something.
This morning felt like
another gear quietly started turning.
6 a.m.
Still before sunrise.
Momoko Sakura loved things that were funny.
She once said that if there’s no humor in her work,
then it simply doesn’t work.
So when I imagine someone reading her books and laughing,
I think she would’ve been genuinely happy about that.
Then I started wondering about myself.
What kind of feeling
would make me happiest
if someone experienced it through my videos?
Or through my diary?
With videos,
I want people to smile.
To let out a quiet little laugh.
And with my diary—
I’d love for someone to read it and think,
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Or,
“Yes! I’ve felt that too.”
Maybe even,
“I want to try that too.”
Or,
“That way of thinking is beautiful.”
I’d be happy if people could place their own memories beside mine—
“That was a hard time.”
“That was such a good time.”
And after reading,
feel something like,
“I’m glad.”
“Alright… I’ll keep going too.”
When I work directly with people as a physiotherapist,
there’s a moment I really love.
It’s when someone suddenly lights up and says,
“Ohhh, I get it!”
“I want to know more!”
“Tell me more!”
I love seeing that spark.
I love helping someone notice something
they hadn’t yet seen in themselves.
Or offering them a new perspective
that suddenly makes things click.
Watching someone become curious and excited—
that feeling is almost addictive to me.
Before bed,
I spent too much time scrolling Instagram again.
And the whole time,
I kept thinking:
“Is this right?”
“Would that be better?”
“Maybe I should do it differently…”
Until yesterday,
I would’ve thought:
I need to spend less time stopping and thinking
and more time actually moving.
But today,
I wondered if maybe these pauses matter too.
Maybe it’s because we stop
that we’re able to move again afterward.
Today,
that felt true.
Oh, and speaking of today—
Claudia sent me a message saying,
“We wish you a Merry Christmas.”
And for some reason,
I was oddly touched.
So people really do say that.
I almost started singing it
to the melody in my head 😊
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
On mornings when I have to go into work,
even when I tell myself I’m fine,
there’s still a part of me bracing for the day.
Right after waking up,
before my brain gets taken over by
“Hurry, hurry,”
I want to do my affirmations.
Lately, I’ve been wanting to ask myself:
“Are you trying too hard again?”
“Are you forcing yourself again?”
I think I want those words
to become a kind of password for myself.
I don’t want to live by forcing things anymore.
The version of me in World 2.0
isn’t struggling all the time.
She’s simply absorbed
in the things she loves.
Even on mornings when I have to commute,
I think I can still feel World 2.0.
That part is something I can choose.
Of course,
I still glance at the clock too much.
Time feels fast.
Like I’m about to get pulled into
all the things I’m supposed to do.
But outside the window,
the little park looked exactly the same as always.
The cherry blossom leaves had completely fallen,
and winter had fully arrived.
At 7 a.m.,
the sky was already growing brighter,
softly tinted orange.
Maybe I’m the only one rushing.
The scenery itself
still seems calm and unbothered.
And if I can notice that,
even just a little—
then I’ll be okay.
Yes.
I’m okay.
On the way home,
I decided to go through Asakusa
because I wanted to see the Sumida River.
And yet—
I got distracted looking at my phone
and walked right past it.
Ah.
Right.
After reading Naomi Takayama’s diary,
I picked up Yuriko Takeda’s Fuji Diary.
Next, I want to read books by Momoko Sakura.
And after that,
something by Shusaku Endo.
I like reading books
that people I admire once loved themselves.
It feels like
a quiet circle spreading outward.
At night,
I didn’t push myself.
I flipped through Hibi Gohan
and let everything else wait for a while.
There are still many things on my mind,
but tonight,
I set them down.
And I could feel it clearly—
I was relaxed.
It felt like
I was actually living as myself.
A really good kind of time.
Oh, and by the way—
I had two good bowel movements today.
The color was good.
The shape was good too.
Lately I’d been constipated
and feeling off for quite a while.
So maybe,
when I genuinely try to take care of myself,
my body really does respond.
Monday, December 22, 2025
Yesterday,
I finished the script and slides
for the study session at work.
Maybe they weren’t perfect,
but I thought:
“If it’s 80% done, that’s enough.”
There was still a part of me
that wanted to keep polishing every detail—
but I let it go.
Working on it little by little
during spare moments at work
was enough.
Today,
I want to live as the version of myself from World 2.
And keep writing the next chapter of my own story.
By the way, yesterday
I felt like I might be coming down with something.
That vague in-between feeling.
But after sleeping properly
and keeping my stomach warm,
I think I recovered.
Right now it’s 5:30 in the morning.
Still completely dark outside.
Today is the winter solstice.
The shortest day of the year.
Which means—
from here on out,
the days slowly begin growing longer again.
For some reason,
that thought alone feels hopeful.
I played Disney piano music in the background
while reading Hibi Gohan 14 by Naomi Takayama.
In the recipe section,
she doesn’t just explain the food—
she writes little stories connected to the dishes too.
And somehow,
that made me want to cook them even more.
That’s such a lovely idea.
I should remember that.
Today,
from the very morning,
Moriyan and I were already living inside “World 2.0.”
I made three things today.
The first was:
“Mongolian-style spicy pork”
from Hibi Gohan.
But I adapted it with ingredients we already had at home.
Instead of pork,
I sliced chicken breast thinly
and marinated it with:
garlic,
yogurt,
mustard,
and cumin powder.
Still, while eating it,
I thought fatty pork probably suits this dish better.
Lately,
I keep seeing recipes that use mustard or grainy mustard
in ways that look delicious.
Maybe I should buy a small jar.
The second thing I made was:
Harumi Kurihara’s cabbage and minced meat soup.
I used leftover miso soup as the base,
and instead of minced meat,
I finely chopped chicken breast.
Then I added garlic, lotus root, onion,
and green onion from the refrigerator.
At that point,
it wasn’t really miso soup anymore.
It had become soup.
Rich with vegetable sweetness and broth,
the kind of flavor that makes your stomach feel relieved.
My digestive system has been tired lately,
so this was exactly the kind of thing I wanted.
I also added a tiny soup pasta
that a viewer from Hungary once sent us—
something I’d never seen in Japan before.
It created a natural thickness in the soup,
soft enough to almost drink without chewing.
I really loved it.
The third thing I made was scones.
Moriyan often asks,
“How about scones for a snack?”
Recently,
I’ve been really into rice-flour sweets,
and he seems to love the scones.
I still had leftover soy milk custard cream from yesterday,
so I made small dents in the dough
and baked the cream inside.
They looked almost like little baked cheese tarts.
Very cute.
The texture was crumbly and crisp,
with a gentle flavor that reminded me of old-fashioned egg sweets.
Still…
custard really is better with regular milk.
Next time, definitely milk.
After lunch,
we went out to distribute flyers.
Five hundred each.
At first,
we walked together while handing them out,
but after a while,
the amount felt endless.
So we split up.
One thousand flyers in total.
Apparently,
the response rate for flyers is around 0.1%.
Meaning even if one person contacts us,
that’s already considered successful.
Even so,
I kept feeling like
trying things like this
must be turning some invisible gear somewhere.
And I found myself strangely absorbed in it.
Even the mailboxes were interesting.
Different shapes,
different layouts.
Thinking about how to distribute them efficiently
became unexpectedly fun.
Apartment buildings were like bonus stages—
rows and rows of mailboxes lined up together.
The stack of 500 flyers
gradually became lighter in my hands,
and that alone felt satisfying.
I don’t know
whether these flyers themselves
will directly lead to something.
But somehow,
I can already imagine a future day
when I’ll look back and say:
“It was because we kept doing small things like that.”
On the way home,
our legs were exhausted,
and we suddenly felt like rewarding ourselves.
So we bought roasted sweet potatoes.
We sat on a quiet riverside bench
with a huge view of the Tokyo Skytree.
A 3 p.m. snack.
By the time we finished eating,
the atmosphere already felt like evening.
Of course—
today was the winter solstice.
That reminded me:
at the supermarket entrance earlier,
pumpkins and yuzu had been lined up everywhere.
Another memory
added to our life together.
Today,
Moriyan also signed Pisio up for:
a business networking event hosted by the ward,
and another event happening in April.
Little by little,
it really feels like we’re moving forward.
Dinner
Leftover roasted sweet potato,
pan-fried in olive oil with a little salt.
The soup from lunch.
Pickled daikon stir-fried in sesame oil.
And the leftover Mongolian-style chicken stir-fry.の
Sunday, December 21, 2025
Ever since this morning,
even though I keep telling myself not to think about it,
part of me is still thinking about the study session at work.
In one version of my imagination,
people ask questions,
seem interested,
and tell me it was helpful.
In another version,
there isn’t enough time,
everything ends awkwardly,
and I’m left feeling unsatisfied.
Both possibilities
keep playing in my head.
But honestly,
I think what’s really making me anxious
is simply the fact that
the materials still aren’t finished.
So starting today,
I want to properly move forward
with the work needed to finish them.
Even if I don’t fully understand things after one try,
sometimes understanding appears
through repetition.
The power of continuing.
My stomach wasn’t feeling well today,
so I skipped breakfast.
(Just hot soy milk.)
At lunch, though,
I completely forgot my stomach had been bothering me
and ate normally.
A hearty miso soup,
homemade takuan pickles,
pork with taro and onion bound together with egg,
and natto.
For dinner,
just avocado and mandarins.
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Yesterday,
we received some positive news from Suraya-san,
and since this morning,
I’ve been quietly feeling grateful
for having met this person.
Especially today.
This heavy, sinking feeling.
The fogginess in my mind and chest.
It’s one of my bad habits—
I put pressure on myself almost immediately.
I’ve always been like this.
It reminds me of how overwhelming
school marathon events felt
when I was in elementary school.
Well…
Maybe one day,
I’ll be able to look back and think,
“Compared to the preciousness of life itself,
none of those things really mattered.”
I’m still waiting for that way of thinking
to fully win inside me.
Until then,
I guess I just have to keep moving toward it.
At times like this,
thinking alone doesn’t help.
I have to physically move myself.
(…Though honestly, it was freezing,
and I was still writing this from inside my futon.)
I played words from Bob Proctor in the background,
half-dozing,
pulling the blankets over myself again
while listening to affirmations.
Probably for about an hour.
When I finally got up,
I felt lighter.
Then I remembered—
Momoko Sakura once said something like:
“When you’re tired, just sleep.
Take care of your body and heart.”
She was right.
In the afternoon,
Moriyan and I had a meeting
about how we want to move Pisio forward.
The philosophy is already clear.
The services are clear too.
The only problem is:
right now, nobody knows Pisio exists.
And both of us genuinely believe—
“If people could just find us…”
So we decided on two short-term actions.
The first:
handing out flyers.
(The flyers Moriyan designed finally arrived the other day.)
The second:
contacting local ward offices and organizations
to look for events we might be able to participate in.
Then we talked about something else—
with much more intensity.
Re-evaluating our current life situation.
I’m still working a company job
while trying to build all of this at the same time.
Moriyan,
after many twists and turns,
is now freelance.
He’s handling the entire structure behind Pisio—
the website, the systems, the foundation underneath everything.
And me—
honestly, this company life is hard for me.
At least now, because of this experience,
I’ve finally realized that
the foundation of my values is:
freedom and spaciousness.
But to be honest,
I already feel completely full.
Past my limit.
If I didn’t have to,
I wouldn’t want to keep living under
organizational pressure,
group expectations,
or invisible rules that nobody can even explain.
I keep imagining a future version of myself
looking back calmly and saying,
“That experience is what led me here.”
But right now,
I’m still financially dependent on it.
So at the very least,
I told Moriyan I wanted to reduce my work schedule
from four days a week to three.
Moriyan is a very practical person.
The moment I say something like that,
his mind immediately starts calculating:
“What risks would come with it?”
We’re a little like
an accelerator and a brake.
Meanwhile,
I’ve recently rediscovered the kinds of things
that feel closest to my true self—
people like Momoko Sakura
and Naomi Takayama.
Every day,
I listen to words from Bob, Joe, and Louise.
And even while working a company job,
I’ve become flexible enough
to still arrive home smiling at the end of the day.
I’m proud of that.
But now that I’ve finally found
what I truly want to do next,
the psychological weight of this job
still feels too heavy.
Even when my thoughts became messy, emotional,
and driven mostly by intensity,
Moriyan still listened.
Carefully. Calmly.
And the meeting continued—
forward-looking,
but realistic.
Beside me,
he was already calculating things like:
“What would our income look like if you worked three days a week?”
“How much would national health insurance and pension payments become?”
But this time,
I refused to bend.
I just wanted to return to being like a child again.
To try the things I genuinely want to do.
Cooking.
Creating.
Living.
After talking through everything again and again,
both of us finally felt:
“No… the direction we’re heading in isn’t wrong.”
Nothing visible in reality had changed.
And yet somehow,
just organizing the fog inside our minds
made it possible to accept the reality we already had.
Friday, December 19, 2025
If A-san, B-san, and C-san—
the people who asked questions—
could each leave with even one small discovery,
then that would be enough.
That’s all I want to focus on.
When I have space in my heart,
I can truly listen to the person in front of me.
And if I can do that,
I think it will become a good session.
The desire for approval.
Fear of other people’s judgment.
The coldness I imagine in the room.
I know those feelings are inside me too.
And that’s probably why
I keep unconsciously thinking about
the study session I’ve been assigned at work.
But another part of me already understands something.
I’m not doing this to be praised.
I’m doing this for myself.
This is one step
toward the future I want.
I am someone who can help people
through the knowledge and experience I already have.
Someone who can offer awareness,
and feel joy through that.
I’ve been thinking about these things constantly.
Today,
we met Suraya-san and her son—
fans of Sushi Couple.
A mother and son from Malaysia.
Her son was around that shy age,
quiet but sweet.
Suraya-san herself was exactly the opposite.
Warm. Bright. Open.
The kind of person whose words naturally overflow with positivity and joy.
You could immediately tell
that this is simply who she is in everyday life.
She treated us to Indian curry.
When we copied the way local people eat it,
the combinations of flavors became so interesting.
After we said goodbye
and parted happily,
she apparently lost her phone.
An iPhone 16 Pro, no less.
And yet,
the messages she sent afterward
were still somehow positive.
The next day,
a message arrived:
“Good news!”
At first I thought,
“Oh, maybe they found it!”
But no—
the “good news” was that
she had managed to back up her photos
onto another phone.
Of course,
she still hoped the phone itself would be found.
But she had already accepted
that the photos might be gone forever.
And then she wrote:
“The happy memories are still there.”
What an incredible person.
I’ve experienced something similar before—
losing my phone right after a wonderful day.
That rollercoaster feeling of joy crashing suddenly into despair.
So when I heard what happened,
I felt devastated for her too.
And yet,
she could still say something like that.
The kind of generosity
that can accept the worst possibility.
The ability to still search for light
inside difficult situations.
While we talked,
we told her about Pisio
and about how we once considered moving to Malaysia.
Again and again, she said:
“Please try!”
“Don’t give up!”
Apparently,
she struggles with tests and interviews,
and had even failed 18 job interviews before.
And still,
she never gave up.
She was the kind of person
who simply makes you feel better
just by being around her.
Dinner that night was wonderful too.
We tried the chickpea curry
and coconut shrimp curry
that Suraya-san recommended.
Naan.
Two kinds of chicken dishes
(I forgot the names).
Three kinds of side dishes
—some similar to Malaysian food, some different.
And mango lassi,
which matched the curries perfectly.
She told us that in Malaysia,
people often use coconut in curry,
while in India,
yogurt is commonly added to chicken curry.
Her son ate the chicken skillfully with his hands,
while also using a fork and spoon naturally.
When his hands got messy,
he simply wiped them.
The wet napkins on the table
became heavily used.
And somehow,
I really liked that.
There are probably many cultural differences—
religious ones too.
But I think in Japan,
people might say things like:
“Use either your hands or a spoon properly.”
Because we care so much about efficiency,
manners,
and neatness.
But really…
if your hands get dirty,
you can just wipe them.
That’s all.
Everything about them
felt gentle and comfortable.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
I woke up wide awake before 4 a.m.
It didn’t feel like anxiety or pressure.
My mind just felt unusually clear,
and ideas for the study session at work
kept pouring out one after another.
Part of me tried to pause and say,
“Calm down. Slow down.”
But in the end,
the part of me that desperately wanted to move my hands and create
won.
Sometimes even I’m surprised
by how deeply I can focus.
The things I want to communicate.
The flow of the day itself.
Even if there’s a lot I want to say,
it means nothing if it doesn’t actually reach people.
So I think having one consistent theme—
something that quietly ties everything together—
is important.
I kept listing ideas
as they came to me.
And then,
I threw everything into G-san.
Even G-san
needed quite a bit of time to process it all.
I guess that’s why it’s important
to experience many things.
Just… a lot of things.
I’ve been reading Momo no Kanzume,
and within seconds of opening it,
I already find myself laughing.
I think Momoko Sakura
was someone with an incredibly rich life.
Not because extraordinary things constantly happened to her,
but because she truly noticed things.
Even moments most people would simply let pass by.
Ridiculous things.
Painful things.
Happy things.
All of it.
There was one passage that stayed with me:
“Even things whose meaning we couldn’t understand while living through them,
may reveal some kind of purpose when viewed across an entire lifetime.And even if we never understand them at all,
realizing that we don’t understand is itself something worth learning from.”
Hmm.
Even embarrassing memories.
Even huge failures.
To look back on them from afar,
turn them into laughter,
and share them with others—
that requires a heart that has already forgiven so much.
A generous heart.
A rich heart.
I don’t think just anyone could do that.
Dinner tonight:
Soft tofu stew with clams
made by Moriyan.
The kimchi tasted especially fresh and delicious.
And ginger pork.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025 — Cloudy, then sunny
Last night,
I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom.
I only woke up after noticing Moriyan getting up,
and then realized,
“Oh, I need to go.”
I stayed in bed afterward,
listening to affirmations.
But today,
it wasn’t working very well.
My mind kept drifting back to work.
Every time I noticed it happening,
I thought,
“Ugh… I don’t want this.”
I wanted to stay still,
to stop thinking,
to focus only on Joe’s words
flowing from the video—
Joe Dispenza speaking calmly in my ears.
But somehow,
my mind wouldn’t settle.
At times like this,
it feels like movement is what’s needed.
Not trying to solve everything inside my head,
but physically taking one step forward.
Lately,
I’ve found a way of spending mornings that I really love.
I leave the room dark,
use my phone flashlight to illuminate a book,
turn on the heater,
sit on the bed,
and read quietly.
A book by Naomi Takayama.
She writes books,
cooks,
goes shopping,
meets up with work friends.
Just reading about her life,
you can feel the gentleness of her days.
Ah…
this is exactly the kind of life I want.
“Who you are today creates your reality.”
…Right.
At work,
I was assigned to lead a study session.
At first,
I planned to make it as simple as possible.
I thought,
“These things are easier if you prepare something basic quickly and get it over with.”
I chose lower back pain as the topic,
roughly imagined the flow,
and decided it would be a Q&A-style session.
At first,
I was thinking only about making it easy on myself.
But then another thought appeared.
What if I ask for questions…
and nobody responds?
What if the distance between me and everyone else
becomes painfully obvious?
(Especially since I’d already started making slides.)
And yet,
questions unexpectedly started arriving directly to me.
People thanked me.
And hearing that—
hearing “thank you”—
made me happy.
Then I started thinking:
“If I’m doing this,
I want it to truly help people.”
So during little breaks in the day,
I kept researching things,
working on materials,
adjusting slides.
Ah…
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
And still,
I guess this is who I am.
When someone needs something from me,
and it’s something I’m capable of doing,
I can’t help but throw myself into it wholeheartedly.
I used to say:
“I don’t want to bring work home with me.”
And yet here I am,
trying to finish slides on my days off.
Will it go well?
Will it actually help?
What if it disappoints people?
The “I have to” thoughts
keep expanding in my head.
At one point I even thought:
“If I keep thinking about work this much,
maybe I’ll never truly be able to leave this world behind.”
A slight neurosis.
That’s honestly how it felt.
On the train ride home,
I noticed all of this happening inside myself.
And I realized:
This is exactly when I need to step away for a while.
I’m so glad I borrowed a book by
Momoko Sakura.
The moment I started reading,
everything blew away.
I was laughing nonstop.
And suddenly,
all the things I’d been agonizing over felt ridiculous.
I thought:
“Ah…
I’ve done it again.
I’ve poured my whole life force into something
that probably isn’t that serious.”
Then I remembered Hiroshi’s line:
“Anything that isn’t life-or-death
isn’t that big of a deal.”
That’s exactly it.
I’m very talented
at cornering myself inside my own head.
But maybe things like this are better approached with laughter,
with looseness,
with less force.
And strangely enough,
that kind of attitude
often leads to better results anyway.
Maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that’s actually good.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025 — Sunny, then cloudy
To be honest.
Pisio still hasn’t truly begun yet.
We don’t have any clients.
I still haven’t left my company job.
And this dream of wanting to live while writing books—
right now,
it’s still just something I feel.
So sometimes I wonder:
Is it really okay
to share myself online
as if Pisio is already moving smoothly,
as if I’m already living this reflective, intentional life
and casually posting pieces of it on Instagram?
Lately,
I’ve started losing sight
of what Instagram even means for me.
(Pisio is a made-up word I created by combining “physio” from physiotherapy and “Pilates.”
A name for the kind of work I’ve been imagining as a physiotherapist.)
Recently,
the kind of life I truly dream about
has become much clearer.
Not a life built around fixed goals or achievements.
But a life where,
through intuition,
through small realizations,
through trying things one by one,
the next step slowly reveals itself.
And while living that way,
I want to become someone
who can share that feeling with others,
or gently inspire them somehow.
I want to live
by making use of this natural tendency I have
to reflect inwardly.
Physiotherapy and Pilates
are certainly parts of me.
But they are not all of me.
And honestly,
I believe leaving company life
is absolutely necessary for me.
Necessary for me to sway naturally as myself,
to enjoy that movement,
to truly live.
Because underneath everything,
my foundation is
“freedom and spaciousness.”
That realization changed something in me.
Pisio itself
isn’t the final goal of our lives.
But it feels like an important step along the way.
So right now,
Moriyan and I are standing at the starting line,
trying different things,
figuring it out together,
so Pisio can actually begin to move.
All while gently calming the part of me
that keeps shouting:
“I want to leave company life as soon as possible.”
Telling her:
“You’re getting closer.
You really are.”
And maybe because I can already feel it approaching,
the waiting feels even more frustrating.
Moriyan and I talk constantly.
Sometimes we misunderstand each other.
Sometimes the conversations become tense.
And still,
somehow,
after moving through those waves,
we always end up facing the same direction again,
with the same burning feeling inside us.
Today,
there was something we both realized together.
When anxiety appears,
it feels like that scene in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
where Alice gets lost in the forest
and bursts into tears.
“When will it happen?”
That becomes the only thing you can think about.
But whenever the next step is illuminated by thoughts like:
“I want to try that.”
“I want to do this.”
—even without knowing how things will turn out—
somehow,
you can still move forward believing:
“It’ll come someday.”
Today,
we met Miguel-san’s family
at Excelsior Caffé in Oshiage.
A father who looked a little like Santa Claus.
A shy mother.
A daughter with a beautiful smile.
Every single time,
I find myself thinking:
Why are the people who watch our videos
always such wonderful people?
Dinner tonight:
Boiled chicken.
A hearty miso soup
with napa cabbage, burdock root, pork, and onion.
And lotus root with pork stir-fried in balsamic vinegar.
Moriyan had made all of it earlier in the day.
Monday, December 15, 2025 — Rain, then sunshine
Today was the day
we had been looking forward to for months:
the antique market in Setagaya.
We originally planned to arrive right when it opened at 9 a.m.,
but halfway through the morning,
we realized we’d be caught in rush hour crowds,
so we decided to leave more slowly instead.
Moriyan and I—
trying to graduate from company life,
trying to live more freely.
Yesterday,
I decided to go back to my roots
and reread all the books by
Momoko Sakura.
Before getting on the train,
we stopped by the library,
and I borrowed one copy of
Momo no Kanzume.
I wanted to borrow many,
but decided to start with just one.
I read it on the train,
and couldn’t stop grinning.
As a child,
I hated reading.
And yet somehow,
books by Momoko Sakura
were the only ones I could completely lose myself in.
Back in middle school,
during the quiet ten-minute reading period each morning,
I once became so immersed in her world
that I accidentally laughed out loud.
(It felt like I had fallen directly into the world of
Chibi Maruko-chan.)
That memory—
how overwhelmingly embarrassed I felt—
suddenly came back to me today.
And still,
no matter how many times I read her work,
I can’t stop smiling.
I try desperately to bite my lip,
but unfortunately,
I laugh with my eyes.
Which only makes me feel like an even stranger person,
and somehow that makes me laugh harder.
Both Chibi Maruko-chan and Coji-Coji
still make me burst into laughter
at exactly the same moments every single time.
Moriyan doesn’t even look annoyed anymore.
At this point,
he almost seems impressed.
The antique market itself
was unbelievably crowded.
It felt like trying to push forward
inside a packed commuter train.
People everywhere.
So many people that
you could barely even see the actual items for sale.
And yet,
everything I could see
felt filled with excitement and possibility.
Little by little,
I started weaving naturally through the crowd.
It almost felt like
all the objects usually hidden away
inside people’s homes
were allowed to shine for just one special day.
Still,
I think the crowds exhausted me more than I realized.
The flea markets and marchés
I see in videos filmed in France
always look so peaceful.
Things I ate today:
Half a tuna mayo rice ball
and a tofu bar from 7-Eleven during the market.
Then later,
still hungry,
Moriyan and I shared supermarket inari sushi
and natto rolls.
For snacks:
small brown sugar manju
and white-skinned manju.
At Dans Dix ans in Kichijoji,
we split:
a croissant,
a small square loaf,
and a round chewy bread.
And even after coming home,
my appetite still wouldn’t stop.
Half an apple.
Miso soup left over from two days ago.
Sweet-and-savory simmered kiriboshi daikon from the other day.
Lotus root kinpira from yesterday.
A boiled egg left from breakfast.
And egg over rice,
topped with bonito flakes
and wrapped in seaweed.
On the train to Kichijoji,
and again on the train home,
my body suddenly felt heavy,
and I became overwhelmingly sleepy.
Too much sugar, probably.
A rapid insulin spike.
So this is what high blood sugar feels like,
I thought.
My right pinky finger is still numb today,
but the boundary between the numb and non-numb areas
feels sharper now.
(I injured it the other day opening one of those jars with the spring-loaded lids—
it snapped open with a loud bang.)
To help burn off some of the sugar,
I got off one station early
and walked home.
On the way,
we stopped by the lifelong learning center
to ask whether Pisio might be able to use one of their rooms for activities.
The answer was:
commercial use isn’t allowed.
But using the space as a community circle or hobby group would be possible.
The staff member listened kindly,
and afterward,
Moriyan and I started brainstorming again.
Praising each other
for actually taking action today.
Then we said:
“Maybe next week,
we should try visiting the public relations office at the ward office?”
Sunday, December 14, 2025 — Rain, then sunshine
This morning,
the rain was mixed with sleet.
When I opened the window,
an intense wave of cold air rushed inside.
The daikon radishes hanging outside to dry
have become wrinkled now,
bending softly into crooked little curves.
They’re probably ready
to be turned into pickles.
And yet,
for some reason,
I just don’t feel like doing it.
I keep glancing at them sideways,
pretending not to notice.
Maybe tomorrow.
(Though only tomorrow’s version of me will know.)
Today,
I decided to spend the day reading.
It was so cold in the morning
that I sat on the edge of the bed,
wrapped the blanket around my knees,
and turned on the heater.
I propped up my phone flashlight
at just the right angle.
The room itself stayed dim,
but the book alone was illuminated.
A surprisingly perfect atmosphere.
Breakfast was simple:
Hot soy milk.
BIO yogurt.
A handful of nuts.
One piece of 95% dark chocolate.
Tomato juice with olive oil.
After breakfast,
I started pouring everything out to G-san.
(“G-san” meaning ChatGPT.)
I wrote nonstop
about the path that led me to suddenly think,
“I want to write a book!”
back on Thursday night, December 11th around 7 p.m.
I traced myself all the way back to elementary school—
the ways I’ve changed,
grown,
struggled,
shifted over the years.
Mostly focusing on the last five years.
But while writing,
the timeline became tangled,
and my thoughts started spinning in circles too.
By the end,
I felt strangely exhausted.
Part of me kept thinking:
“Could I really write a book?”
And at the exact same time,
another part of me was already thinking:
“How should I post pieces of this diary on Instagram?”
It was funny noticing that contradiction
while writing.
I wish every day contained that feeling—
the feeling where words naturally want to spill out of me
toward G-san.
But of course,
not every day is like that.
And maybe on days when I sit there thinking,
“What should I write today?”
those are simply days
that don’t need writing.
Actually,
the moment it starts feeling forced,
it becomes painful for me.
And that’s why I can’t continue.
I hate rules that make me feel trapped,
and yet somehow,
I’m always the one creating rules for myself.
So maybe the answer is simpler.
Just try.
Just move your hands.
That alone is enough.
I want to leave that reminder here for myself.
Saturday, December 13, 2025 — Cloudy
Today felt like the day
to finally begin keeping a diary.
There was something I had quietly been wanting to do since yesterday.
In the morning,
I soaked dried daikon strips
and made simmered pork and konnyaku.
I followed a recipe,
but I like things a little sweeter,
so I added a bit more sugar.
I’ve always admired grandmothers
who know exactly what flavor they like
and can season food by instinct.
So somehow,
that small adjustment made me happy.
I also soaked dried shiitake mushrooms in water,
and for lunch,
I cooked rice in the donabe with dried sardines.
The last time I made takikomi rice in the donabe,
I forgot to soak the rice first
and ended up with rock-hard rice.
So this time,
I was careful from the beginning.
…Or at least,
I thought I was.
While the rice was cooking,
I got completely absorbed typing away at my computer.
Somewhere in the back of my mind,
I knew I should check the pot so it wouldn’t burn—
but I got too focused.
Then suddenly,
I caught a fragrant smell.
I rushed to the stove,
where steam was billowing up energetically.
“Oh no… maybe I burned it.”
“Not again.”
I sighed a little at my own carelessness.
But when I opened the lid,
there it was—
a perfect layer of crispy scorched rice.
I felt so relieved.
The flavor was gentle,
simple,
quietly nourishing.
After lunch,
I headed to the library.
It was an incredibly cold day.
There wasn’t much wind,
but the cold air pierced straight through my body.
Still, on days like this,
pulling up my hood makes such a difference.
I used to think hoods were just for fashion.
Apparently not.
Just covering my ears and head
made me feel completely warmer.
On the way there,
I suddenly thought of a friend
who recently moved into my neighborhood.
So after the library,
we made plans to meet briefly.
I had been wanting to read books by Naomi Takayama,
so I enthusiastically picked out four at once.
This friend and I have known each other since high school.
She’s always been quick to act,
and somehow our tastes are very similar.
Whenever I say,
“I want to try this,”
or
“That sounds fun,”
she almost always replies,
“That sounds great! Let’s do it!”
Now that we live close to each other,
we talked about meeting at the supermarket sometime.
Splitting oversized bargain groceries in half.
Standing side by side in the kitchen,
chatting while we cook.
Just simple little things like that.
On the walk home,
I flipped through the books I had borrowed.
Everything about them felt so simple,
free,
comfortable.
There was no feeling of:
“You should do this,”
or
“You have to become that.”
And I thought—
When I get home,
I’ll try writing a diary too.
I want to become freer.
More and more free.
Today feels like
the first day of that.
Past Days