Mt. Fuji 🗻
An undisputable landmark visible from the city of Tokyo. It is majestic towering at 3776m with an almost perfect cone shape. Inspired myths and fables and novels and stories we would not know if it is ever true. But one thing for sure, she's elusive, she's unapologetically grand.
Celebrating one year of living abroad. Cliché as it may sound, I have stretched my boundaries, pushed my limits, and now have grown accustomed living in a foreign land. Slowly learning my ways around the neighborhood. Founded a new path (literally and figuratively). No more fears of getting lost but excited to discover, wander, explore. No more anxiety of not understanding nor being understood. But a profound admiration of the human connection through actions rather than words.
Long days, long nights, but oh how fast the year went by. All four seasons. From the hottest months, we saw the trees shed their leaves and spring anew. The city turned white with snow, watered and battered by rain, and as with time we all circle through.
I stood still, I observed, I witnessed. As this year go. Sometimes participating, sometimes watching.
Until that time came, when it's start to climb. Ready or not we meet now, your majesty, your highness Mt. Fuji
With this new year upon me, I vow to participate. I vow to practice the lifestyle, habits, mindset, of the person I was and the person I want to be. I got lost in the sea of people, I got lost in characters and sounds, I got lost in my own doubt. But lost no more, I am found. The steps to get through the highest peak of Japan, are the same steps and brevity needed for a flourishing new year.
You start with a promise. A promise to keep the friends, the memories, and of seeing each other again. That promise came true when friends descended one by one in Tokyo. My heart started to fill as I prepare for their arrival. After a year, the same footsteps I trail, I followed, I lead are here back at the foot of Mount Fuji 🗻 If it was any other year, we would have prepared together, practiced together. But times have changed. I come to accept that the ocean between us are real, and practicing together for a big hike is not going to happen. This year I will give my best to practice the kind of hiker I was, I want to be, with friends in my heart, and not their shoulders on my side. This time, not an outward promise, but an inward promise. A promise to myself, that I will be there for me. Making space and time for wellness.
Mt Fuji 🗻 is not the hardest hike I have hiked. But because of lack of practice it did feel that way to my body and mind. As we come of age, the world throws us challenges that we would naturally had to overcome, making us stronger children, adolescent, setting us up for adulthood. We had to overcome first days of school as a child in kindergarten to learn how to be away from our parents, we learn to make friends, we learn to lose friends, and we learn to keep friends. As developing adults we learn to find love, get our hears broken, break some hearts, that we may have a strong heart to endure life's highs and lows. We learn to be productive members of society, from our lemonade stands, to internships, to a bonafide tax paying members of society. Somehow, somewhere, we feel we're strong enough to endure. Life happens, we become observers and not practitioners of living. And that's when Mt Fuji 🗻 shows up and you realize I let life pass me by. My lungs can't keep up, my legs are tired, but muscle remembered how strong I was. Muscle memory is real. My heart can handle this, I had been in harder hikes before. My mind can handle this, I have been in more pain before. My body will heal, as it healed itself before. So I did it. I climbed Mt Fuji, not even the last one to complete it. Alongside with friends whom I have hiked some of my hardest hikes before. A lot has changed and yet nothing has changed. One thing for sure we must continue to challenge ourselves, push ourselves upwards and onwards. One step at a time with people who will ahead of us, behind us, alongside with us. And just like life, ther are some people you would rather hike with than not. You don't want that pebble in your shoe.
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