My 11 small luxuries
Also hello to some of you!
oh why hello! It’s been a minute and I’ve got some exciting news to share along with a getting-back-in-to-it style writing this week. Also hello to some of you new members :) I saw that some people joined the newsletter after my Japan Times article went live. Can’t appreciate you more for finding me interesting enough and prompted you to follow me. The substack rebrand is going to happen soon - there’s just a lot on my plate now so hold your tits and you shall be blessed with some yummy graphics (wink wink).
Some exciting writing pieces that came out in March;
・A community of stories: Making space for reflection and dialogue in Tokyo and beyond with Japan Times
This piece was inspired by the classes I’ve had the pleasure in teaching with my friend Gemma and her workshop Astray. A friend of this Newsletter, and an absolute honor to say that we are IRL friends as well (!!),
was my stunning editor. If you are someone who is craving a place or groups of people to converse with or even to just connect with - I wonder if this piece can give you some type of motivation, or even the gasoline to pump your fuel to go out there and find those people. Life is not built equal, but the funny thing is, everyone needs to start somewhere and that’s across the board. It doesn’t feel realistic to say just go out there and “make friends,” but trust me when I say this, there’s always someone or a place for you out there who is thinking the same thing or similar and you just haven’t found each other yet.・What womanhood feels like in Japan with Byline
I pitched Byline a couple months ago without knowing that they were putting together a RISK issue in April. The timing was impeccable. They wanted to put my piece in the RISK issue and who knew that I would be side by side with one of my favorite artist, Wet also known as Kelly Zutrau. It’s a piece about questioning the status quo, to always wonder about the now. Things can feel very comfortable quickly, especially in Japan where things don’t change that often and you are seeing the same scenery over and over again. I just wanted to encourage a slight nudge of curiosity out of everyone. Have a read and let me know what you think.
Now that’s out, I’m getting back into my own creative projects and writing again. I have so much on my plate currently and all of it is just simple creative projects that don't necessarily bring money to the table but it’s purely for me. I couldn’t have imaged myself saying this 3 years ago when I was in the thick of corporate culture. Nothing interests me besides getting a paycheck and drinking on weekends. Now everything interests me. Including getting paid fairly as a freelancer and drinking from 4pm on a weekday if I wanted to.
I came across a substack post not long ago that someone just wrote down the small pleasures or simple pleasures that give them joy. Subsequently, my boyfriend and I were walking around the office to get some lunch the other day and he was describing to me his dinner the night before and he said, “It’s actually crazy that I said it was luxurious because nothing about it is luxury.” He woke up from an evening nap hungry and cooked himself a hearty vegetable fueled nabe, and then took a bath, read a book on his couch and went to bed by 10. It sparked a conversation between us on how we define luxuries. Is it really just about staying at expensive hotels and taking vacations or is it there a more realistic view on luxury?
It made me wonder what my small luxuries are. That word luxury is often associated with purely money or how expensive the thing you are doing is. The big ‘luxury’ brands prices their bags from $5000. The trend, ‘quiet luxury’ meant that you wear a $2000 pant, $6000 crocodile skin bag, and $800 white T shirt that didn’t scream ‘brand’ in your face.
But I can absolutely tell you that my small luxury isn’t about the money I spent - sometimes it can be - but it’s more tangible and it gives me comfort. Like getting a McDonalds with large fries or more crazier, having breakfast at McDonalds on a sunny Sunday or getting a cup of coffee after a yoga class.
Without further ado, here are some luscious things I’ve been enjoying over the course of the couple months.
Getting a coffee
If you know me now this won’t surprise you probably because I now often get a coffee at coffee shops, but I used to hate the idea of spending money on coffee. I thought it was so stupid when I could pour myself a nice cup at home - with my Breville espresso machine might I add! Alas, I don’t care about it anymore. Maybe because I discovered that I can expense all my coffee in the fiscal year as a part of my ‘expenses’ (I’m having a meeting every time at the coffee shops OK?!), or maybe because I positioned my coffee purchases as treats now and not an everyday thing. An added experience here is that I just go to a coffee shop on a weekday, early morning and read a book empty handed.
Writing in my planner
In January this year, I purchased a planner. My boyfriend who is a stationary fenatic encouraged me and he was mostly digital for a while but he also was getting back into the idea of writing down plans. As he often says, there’s nothing better than a pen and paper. I bought the famous hobonichi techo that is designed to make the writing process as simple as possible. Even to those who never writes down their plans like me and stores plans in their minds, I’m so pumped to open up my planner everyday. This might sound silly to those who have been doing it for years, but it’s such a game changer to see your plans laid out for the coming week or month even. Honestly gobsmacked. I’m also a visual learner in general so I really don’t know why it took me this long to realize it… but here we are. It’s my favorite thing to have plans and write it down and not have plans and think what to fill it with or not.
Yoga classes
This is more in the literal sense of luxury maybe - but I joined classpass this February and I’ve been really loving it. I did my first ever CrossFit and HIIT classes on it, swore to never do it again anytime soon after the painful muscle aches I had to endure for 2 weeks lol but the yoga classes have been so nice. God how tight my body and muscles are!!! Not gonna lie, buying some new lululemon yoga wear has been… fun too.
Writing on my ‘words’ notebook
I had so many notebooks just lying around and wanted to put them to use. When I read, I stumble upon unknown words all the time. (English isn’t my native tongue after all.) I documented them to put into use for my next writing on whatever notebooks in the past but not specifically for a ‘word’ notebook. So here it is! It’s been fun to look through some words and their meaning, incorporating them into my writing.
Sorting out government envelops
This is not luxurious at all - but my god once you can throw away all the envelope that has piled up onto your desk that was unopened, it’s pure therapy. Purging. I have a terrible habit of not looking at my mailbox for several weeks. I’m terrified that I have unpaid bills or pension or taxes that I didn’t pay or figured out. Once I started to open my mailbox more frequently, sorting my shit more frequently as well, I feel very much like an adult in the wild.
finding the balance with my blood sugar
This year I started a new thing - well I’ve been starting a lot of new things actually but one important thing is that I started to carb count. For a type1 patient, it’s the bare minimum thing to do for your body so you know how much insulin to take, but I’ve been basically eyeballing it. (TERRIBLE!) I started to read books that my mom bought when I was diagnosed in 2016 and it’s been so educational. To be fair, those kinds of books are a bit outdated and I get a lot of info from Instagram and Tiktok but especially the mechanics of food nutrition and how every single food interacts with my body cell, it’s been useful and a great habit to think, how much fiber, fat and or carbs is in this?
A visit to my witch
In modern day parlance, my acupuncturist. I’ve been going to her since 2020 maybe, and stopped entirely around 2022. She’s not cheap, for a 60 minute acupuncture, I pay 13,000 yen but every penny is worth it. In Japanese we will use a silly word like ‘body maintenance’ but it’s true. My physical hygiene feels very sharpe and cleansed when I go to her once a month or every other month.
an occasional McDonalds or any yummy burger
Like it is what it is. McDonalds is just good and you can’t tell me otherwise. Do I go there at least once every month? For sure. Does writing about it make me want one? Absolutely.
sorting out my closet
Let’s say this is in progress but when I do tackle my closet, it feels so luxurious. This isn’t a small thing, if anything it’s quite a big project, but I’ve been very mindful of what I’m purchasing and what I need to take out. 1 out, 1 in policy doesn't apply to me because I simply have too many clothes. 3 Out, 1 in makes more sense at this stage. But when I do sell my old clothes or drop it off somewhere, I feel so much lighter and aware of what I own - to not have a ton of shit in my closet and hopefully give it to someone who will actually wear it.
keeping a documentation on Pinterest
I’ve been secretly creating a Pinterest board for Q1, if interested here you are. I was always like how should I keep this visual on record that I want to revisit at some point? I didn’t want to save it on my laptop because I know that method won’t work. Printing and making a ‘vision board’ isn’t what I do. But pasting shit on Pinterest is something I could get behind and the method has been working. It’s not a lot but if there is any art or quotes I don’t want to forget about, I make it a habit to go to Pinterest.
washing my hair for real
Yeah you read that right. I haven’t been washing my hair right for let’s say…20 years at least. I hated taking showers only until recently not because it was too cumbersome to wash my hair, but it was more so because I never felt like my hair was washed. I was using this certain shampoo for years, never thought to replace it with something else because shampoo related products is on the last of my wish list. But after my boyfriend very lovingly suggested washing my hair for me one day, it changed everything. My boyfriend is peculiar in many ways but he’s a very clean guy. That doesn’t make him peculiar but he just knows a lot of stuff, even about hair stuff (and he doesn’t even have hair!). He said to me, “I mean I’ve seen you wash your hair and I don’t think you were washing the shampoo off enough or you were washing your scalp.” Even after a shower, I felt itchy or felt like it still smells sweaty. Now everything has changed. I wash it from the scalp, spend 3 times more the time to wash my hair and rinse out the shampoo like the adult I am. I have also been using Oribe gold lust repair and restore. It’s insanely expensive and definitely luxurious. But the results are luxurious too. Thank you mother on this recommendation.
I think this is a good place to wrap up my small luxuries. Tell me yours, very curious.
Thank you for reading as always lovers x Say hello on Instagram and instagram only.